Inflammatory Breast Cancer Foundation

Tips: Insist that your physician take your temperature at initial exam. Mastitis is often accompanied by an increase in body temp, while IBC is not.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) is THEE MOST aggressive type of breast cancer in which the cancer cells block the lymph vessels in the skin of the breast. This type of breast cancer is called “inflammatory” because the breast often looks swollen and red, or “inflamed”, sometimes overnight.

• IBC accounts for 1 to 5 percent (these numbers vary depending on their source) of all breast cancer cases in the United States. It tends to be diagnosed in younger women compared to non-IBC breast cancer.


• IBC lies in sheets (or nests), not the usual lump women are told to look for, thus rarely seen on routine mammograms.


• Inflammatory Breast Cancer occurs more frequently and at a younger age in African Americans than in Whites. The median age range of IBC patients is between 45 and 55 years old, but may be either younger or older.


• Like other types of breast cancer, IBC can occur in men.


• The 5-year median survival rate is approximately 40%, mainly due to delays in diagnosis, a physician's lack of expertise in treating IBC and its resistance to treatment with standard chemotherapy drugs.


• IBC is treated differently, because it is different.

Signs and Symptoms of
Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Click on the IBC ribbon to see photos of clinical signs of Inflammatory Breast Cancer.to see photos of clinical signs of Inflammatory Breast Cancer.
The pictures are graphic, but education is powerful.

* Remember that no one woman will have all these symptoms, and some may only have a few. Everyone is different.

Signs of IBC

Because inflammatory breast cancer doesn't normally occur as a breast lump and has a peculiar growth pattern, its symptoms are not typical signs of cancer, and may appear to be something else.

IBC symptoms may include one or some of the below:

• A breast that appears discolored; (red, purple, pink or bruised)


• A tender, firm and enlarged breast (sometimes overnight)


• A warm feeling in the breast (or may feel hot/warm to the touch


• Persistent Itching of the breast (not relieved with cream or salve)


• Shooting or stabbing pain


• Ridged or dimpled skin texture, similar to an orange peel


• Thickened areas of breast tissue


• Enlarged lymph nodes under the arm, above/below the collarbone


• Flattening or retraction of the nipple


• Swollen or crusted skin on the nipple


• Change in color of the skin around the nipple (areola)

If one or more of these symptoms continue for more than a week, talk to a physician immediately, and find an expert with experience in treating this particular type of breast cancer. Many women have to demand that their physicians "rule out" IBC, and (therefore) become their own best advocate, as more education is needed in the medical community regarding this form of breast cancer.

How is IBC diagnosed?

MD Anderson IBC Clinic states:

Standard diagnostic tests for breast cancer, such as mammograms, MRI and biopsies generally cannot accurately diagnose IBC. The following tests are used to make a diagnosis:

* Surgical biopsy – larger samples of the breast skin and underlying tissue can be collected in a surgical or skin biopsy, with better chances for identifying the cancer cells.

*PET Scan – In the near future, this could be one of the most important diagnostic/staging tests for IBC, though it is still under study. PET scans enable oncologists to see more disease.

The National Cancer Institute states:

IBC is classified as either stage IIIB or stage IV breast cancer. Stage IIIB breast cancers are locally advanced. Stage IV breast cancer is cancer that has spread to other organs(metastasized). IBC tends to grow rapidly, and the physical appearance of the breast of patients with IBC is different from that of patients with other stage III breast cancers. IBC is an especially aggressive,locally advanced breast cancer.

How is IBC treated?

Inflammatory breast cancer is typically treated with chemotherapy before surgery.

Treatment consisting of chemotherapy, targeted therapy, surgery, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy is used to treat IBC. Patients may also receive supportive care to help manage the side effects of the cancer and its treatment. Chemotherapy (anticancer drugs) is generally the first treatment for patients with IBC, and is called neoadjuvant therapy. Chemotherapy is systemic treatment, which means that it affects cells throughout the body. The purpose of chemotherapy is to control or kill cancer cells, including those that may have spread to other parts of the body.

After chemotherapy, patients with IBC may undergo surgery and radiation therapy to the chest wall. Both radiation and surgery are local treatments that affect only cells in the tumor and the immediately surrounding area. The purpose of surgery is to remove the tumor from the body, while the purpose of radiation therapy is to destroy remaining cancer cells. Surgery to remove the breast (or as much of the breast tissue as possible) is called a mastectomy. Lymph node dissection (removal of the lymph nodes in the underarm area for examination under a microscope) is also done during this surgery.

For more information on treatment, you can go to the websites below , and enter the search term, inflammatory breast cancer.

MD Anderson IBC Clinic

National Cancer Institute: www.cancer.gov

National Cancer Trials for IBC: www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials
(the above site is for basic trials for breast cancer. By entering
Inflammatory Breast Cancer into the search, it brings you to this link:
http://www.cancer.gov/search/ResultsClinicalTrials.aspx?protocolsearchid=4001492

When searching for clinical trials within the National Cancer Institute, you will notice this sentence:
"For more details about this trial, refer to the Health Professional version of the trial summary."
It is a link within each trial. By clicking on the link, in most cases,it will take you to a different page that states Inflammatory Breast Cancer is included.