What is inflammatory breast cancer?
Inflammatory breast cancer (inflammatory breast carcinoma) is a special type of advanced invasive breast cancer – that is, an advanced malignant breast tumor that invades surrounding tissue. In most cases here, the cancer cells grow along lymphatic vessels in the skin of the breast.
The term “inflammatory” for this breast cancer comes from the fact that at least part of the skin on the affected breast shows the classic signs of inflammation – redness and overheating (inflammatio = Latin for “inflammation”).
Rare form of cancer
Inflammatory breast cancer is rare. Only a small single-digit percentage of all breast cancers are due to this form of progression. It is more common in younger women before menopause. The tumor can also break out during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Intensive therapy necessary
Inflammatory breast carcinoma is an aggressive breast cancer that requires intensive treatment with chemotherapy, surgery and radiation:
- Mastectomy: In this case, the entire breast must be removed (radical mastectomy) – breast-conserving surgery is not recommended for inflammatory breast cancer (risk of recurrence is too high).
- Radiation: Surgery is followed by radiation therapy to eliminate any tumor cells remaining in the body.
You can learn more about each treatment step here.
In most other breast cancers, anti-hormone therapy is possible because tumor cells grow in response to female sex hormones. This is not the case with inflammatory breast cancer: its cells usually have no docking sites for sex hormones, so they do not respond to hormone deprivation therapy.
Inflammatory breast cancer: what are the symptoms?
In this form of breast cancer, a diffuse “red spot” (i.e., diffuse redness of the skin) and overheating of the breast indicate an inflammatory component. The affected area may also hurt. The skin is often swollen and thickened. In its texture, it often resembles orange peel skin (peau d’orange).
A solid tumor (“lump in the breast”) is usually not palpable in inflammatory breast cancer, unlike in other forms of breast cancer.
Breast inflammation (mastitis) typically manifests itself with redness, hyperthermia and swelling of the breast skin – just like inflammatory breast cancer. Even with ultrasound and other imaging techniques, it is often difficult to distinguish between the two conditions. Certainty comes from analyzing a tissue sample (biopsy).
Inflammatory breast cancer: What is the chance of survival?
The prognosis is poor: due to the non-specific symptoms, inflammatory breast cancer is rarely detected in the early stages; breast inflammation (mastitis) is often wrongly diagnosed. In addition, this form of cancer progresses rapidly (within weeks to months) and quickly forms metastases in other organs such as the lymph nodes. In most cases, such metastases are already present when the cancer is discovered.
Intensive treatment consisting of chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy is accordingly important in inflammatory breast cancer. If this therapy concept is reduced, the survival time of those affected is shortened.
