IBC: A Rare Form of Breast Cancer

Author: Jody Cross

Early detection of breast cancer plays a vital role in long-term survival rates, so women have been taught to do self-breast examinations on a regular basis, and to go to a doctor anytime they feel a lump. Unknown to most women is another, much rarer but very aggressive and lethal form of breast cancer, where symptoms are less distinguishable, and diagnosis more elusive.

Called inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), and amounting for somewhat under 8 percent of all breast cancers in the United States, this aggressive form of breast cancer can develop in a matter of weeks to months, rather than the months to years it takes for the more common form of breast cancer to grow. IBC grows differently within the breast than common breast cancer; it grows rather like a sheet, spreading itself throughout the breast, invading and clogging lymphatic vessels under the skin. Diagnosis is more difficult because usually no lump is present, so it escapes detection from regular mammograms or ultrasound.

Signs and symptoms include one breast suddenly becoming much larger than the other and appearing red or bruised, with dimpled skin similar to that on an orange. The breast will be warm to the touch, and will be sore, and possibly ache. There will be a flattening of the nipple, and the nipple itself may be crusted, swollen, and discharge a fluid. The skin around the nipple may change color. Usually no fever is present, although fever is not unheard of.

This cancer can strike men as well as women. Women are usually in their late fifties, and men tend to be even older when it strikes. Black women are slightly more prone to the disease than Caucasian women.

To best protect yourself, if you have been treated with antibiotics for a breast infection for a week or more, but the condition seems to be getting worse, ask your doctor to schedule you for a biopsy that includes a skin sample. Also you might want to request a referral to a breast specialist, because inflammatory breast cancer needs to be treated very quickly and very aggressively.

Because it is such an aggressive cancer, the treatment will include several rounds of high dose chemotherapy, followed by full breast and lymph node surgical removal, then high-dose radiation therapy, followed by more chemotherapy.

Because of advances in treatment, about half the women diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer are alive after 5 years, and nearly a third now live twenty years more years. With early detection and more research there is hope that survival rates will continue to improve in the future.