There are many different types of breast cancer but one less common and less talked about is inflammatory breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is significantly more rare than other types and accounts for only about 1%-5% of all breast cancer diagnoses.1 It is caused by cancer cells interfering with the lymphatic vessels, causing an inflamed appearance. Although it is technically considered a type of invasive ductal carcinoma, its symptoms and treatment options are much different.1
When we think about self-breast exams, we think about looking for a lump or change in the shape of the breast, however inflammatory breast cancer can present significantly different. The most common symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer include2:
- Change in the colour of skin: usually a reddish purple colour
- Swelling in the breast
- “Orange Peel” skin on the breast
- Breast pain
- Itching or burning in the breast or armpit
Many symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer mimic infection symptoms and as such it can often be misdiagnosed as mastitis, especially in women who are breastfeeding. Because the symptoms of this specific breast cancer are atypical of other breast cancers diagnosis can be challenging and often take longer.
Inflammatory breast cancer can occur to anyone, but is more likely to occur in certain subgroups. Some risk factors for inflammatory breast cancer include1:
- Younger age (under 40)
- Being overweight or obese
- Black women are at an increased risk
Treatment options for inflammatory breast cancer include traditional treatment techniques like chemotherapy and targeted therapy but have other special considerations. Inflammatory breast cancer tends to not be hormone sensitive and so typically hormone therapies are not used. It is also often HER-2+ (about 60%), and so it is common that these women will be treated with a targeted therapy such as Herceptin3. For surgical approaches the most common treatment is a mastectomy, and either no reconstruction or a tissue reconstruction will be offered, usually not an implant reconstruction. Although these are the trends seen in medicine, they are not absolute, and each individual will receive a specific pathological diagnosis, and the appropriate treatments will be determined by their oncology team.
References:
- American Cancer Society. Inflammatory breast cancer. 2015: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/002298-pdf.pdf.
- Canadian Cancer Society: Inflammatory breast cancer:
- National Cancer Institute. Inflammatory Breast Cancer. 2012: http://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/ibc-fact-sheet.