Introduction: Nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel) is a novel solvent-free formulation of paclitaxel, which was developed to avoid toxicities associated with Cremophor EL® vehicle used in solvent-based paclitaxel. It is approved as monotherapy for treatment of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) in Europe and the US; in combination therapy for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and for first-line treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer (PC) only in the US. The European Medicines Agency has recently released only a positive opinion for use of nab-paclitaxel in PC.
Areas covered: This review reports the clinical findings and the safety data of nab-paclitaxel for MBC, NSCLC and PC.
Expert opinion: In MBC, nab-paclitaxel has demonstrated a good safety and an efficacy profile compared with other taxanes, but no strong data on overall survival are available. Considering the role of markers or predictive factors for nab-paclitaxel effectiveness in the metastatic setting would be useful. In PC, nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine represent a new therapeutic choice with significant improvement in survival. In a Phase III study with NSCLC patients, nab-paclitaxel showed better results in a subgroup of patients with squamous histology, for whom results with conventional therapies are still poor and improved therapeutic options are needed.