OBJECTIVES: Current treatment practices for patients in Australia with advanced breast cancer (ABC) who have previously been treated with an anthracycline and a taxane (A&T) are not well defined. There is no "gold standard" treatment for these heavily pre-treated patients. A retrospective longitudinal survey was conducted to gain an insight into the treatments currently used in this patient group. METHODS: Four public hospitals provided patient level data. Inclusion criteria encompassed women ≥ 18 years with ABC who had previously received A&T therapy and had ≥ 3 months follow-up. Information on demographics, disease characteristics and treatment history was obtained from medical records of all eligible patients. Descriptive statistics were performed by disease characteristics and treatments prescribed by line of therapy post A&T. RESULTS: Data were obtained from 79 patient records. The mean (SD) age at initial diagnosis was 51.5 (10.9) years with most patients having stage IIIA disease (45.6%). Seventy four patients (93.7%) had previously undergone surgery. The most common first-line therapies post A&T were monotherapy or combination use of radiotherapy (39/79, 49.4%), cytotoxic chemotherapy (36/79, 45.6%), targeted therapy (11/79, 13.9%) and hormonal therapy (8/79, 10.3%). Paclitaxel, whether used alone or in combination, was the most common first-line cytotoxic treatment post A&T (11/79, 13.9%), followed by cyclophosphamide (10/79, 12.7%), doxorubicin (9/79, 11.4%) and docetaxel (7/79, 8.9%). Cytotoxic mono-chemotherapies were more commonly prescribed first-line post A&T than cytotoxic combination treatments (31.6% vs. 13.9%) with paclitaxel (9/79, 11.4%), docetaxel (5/79, 6.3%) and capecitabine (4/79, 5.1%) being most frequently prescribed. FEC (4/79, 5.1%) and doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (3/79, 3.8%) were the most commonly administered cytotoxic first-line combinations. CONCLUSIONS: The considerable variation in the treatments prescribed for patients with ABC who have previously received A&T highlight the need for an effective treatment option. Radiotherapy and cytotoxic chemotherapy were the most frequently administered therapies, with paclitaxel being most commonly prescribed cytotoxic agent.