Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy is given systemically, usually through a port, to destroy as many cancer cells as possible before surgery. Chemotherapy that is given before surgery is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Mastectomy

• Surgical removal of the entire breast may be recommended following chemotherapy.

Axillary Lymph Node Dissection

• Your surgical oncologist will remove several lymph nodes from under your arm.

External Beam Radiation Therapy

• Radiation therapy uses high-energy beams to target and destroy cancer cells. Adjuvant radiation therapy may be given after surgery to destroy the remaining cancer cells. Neoadjuvant radiation therapy may be given before surgery if the cancer does not respond to chemotherapy. Your team will help decide which approach is right for you.

Targeted Therapy

• Treatment that targets specific cancer genes, such as that used with cancers that evaluate positive for the HER2 protein, may be prescribed. Your doctor will let you know if you are eligible to participate in clinical trials testing new types of targeted therapies.

Hormone Therapy

• Hormone therapy, also called endocrine therapy, may be part of your treatment for breast cancer that evaluates positive for estrogen or progesterone receptors. Unlike hormone replacement therapy (HRT), hormone therapy blocks the hormones that cause cancer to grow.

Immunotherapy

• This type of therapy is given intravenously to boost the body’s immune system and help it identify and destroy cancer cells and prevent them from recurring. It is used to treat advanced inflammatory breast cancer in people who are not candidates for surgery. You may be eligible to participate in clinical trials that evaluate whether combinations of these therapies with other medications may extend survival or boost the drugs’ ability to attack cancer.

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) differs from other types of breast cancer in many ways:

• IBC tends to occur in younger women (younger than 40 years of age).

• Black women develop IBC more often than white women.

• IBC is more common among women who are overweight or obese.

• IBC tends to be more aggressive—it grows and spreads much more quickly than more common types of breast cancer.

• IBC is always at a locally advanced stage when it is first diagnosed because the breast cancer cells have grown into the skin. (This means it is at least stage III.)

• In about one of every three cases, IBC has already spread (metastasized) to distant parts of the body when it is diagnosed. This makes it harder to treat successfully.

• Women with IBC tend to have a worse prognosis (outcome) than women with other common types of breast cancer.