Can you get bilateral inflammatory breast cancer?
Can you get bilateral inflammatory breast cancer?
Bilateral IBC is extremely rare. This entity can present challenges for the standard treatment of IBC with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, MRM, and whole breast radiation (2).
What is the life expectancy for inflammatory breast cancer?
5-year relative survival rates for inflammatory breast cancer
| SEER Stage | 5-year Relative Survival Rate |
|---|---|
| Regional | 56% |
| Distant | 19% |
| All SEER Stages | 41% |
How long can you live with untreated inflammatory breast cancer?
IBC tends to have a lower survival rate than other forms of breast cancer3. The U.S. median survival rate for people with stage III IBC is approximately 57 months, or just under 5 years. The median survival rate for people with stage IV IBC is approximately 21 months, or just under 2 years.
What does inflammatory breast cancer look like on the breast?
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is an uncommon type of invasive breast cancer that typically makes the skin on the breast look red and feel warm. It also may give the breast skin a thick, pitted appearance that looks a lot like an orange peel.
What causes inflammation in the breast ducts?
It’s not clear what causes inflammatory breast cancer. Doctors know that inflammatory breast cancer begins with an abnormal cell in one of the breast’s ducts. Mutations within the abnormal cell’s DNA instruct it to grow and divide rapidly.
Can you have a mastectomy with inflammatory breast cancer?
Because IBC affects so much of the breast and skin, breast-conserving surgery (partial mastectomy or lumpectomy) and skin-sparing mastectomy are not options. It isn’t clear that sentinel lymph node biopsy (where only one or a few nodes are removed) is reliable in IBC, so it is also not an option.
Are there any clinical trials for inflammatory breast cancer?
NCI sponsors clinical trials of new treatments for all types of cancer, as well as trials that test better ways to use existing treatments. Participation in clinical trials is an option for many patients with inflammatory breast cancer, and all patients with this disease are encouraged to consider treatment in a clinical trial.