Inflammatory breast cancer
This is a rare type of breast cancer that can grow more quickly than other types of breast cancer.
What is inflammatory breast cancer?
Inflammatory breast cancer is so called because the skin of your breast may appear red and/or swollen – similar to that seen with some infections of the breast.
The redness is caused by breast cancer cells blocking tiny channels in the breast tissue called lymph channels.
Is inflammatory breast cancer common?
No, inflammatory breast cancer is a rare type of cancer. 1 or 2 in every 100 breast cancer cases are this type.
How is inflammatory breast cancer treated?
Inflammatory breast cancer can grow more quickly than other types of breast cancer, so you will usually start treatment straight away.
You will usually be offered chemotherapy first. Chemotherapy can reduce the size of the tumour and make it easier to remove with surgery. Chemotherapy can also destroy any cancer cells that have spread outside the breast.
Read more about chemotherapy.
Usually you will have surgery after chemotherapy. Usually the whole breast is removed (mastectomy), but it may be possible to remove only part of the breast. It depends on where the cancer is and how well the chemotherapy worked. Your surgeon will probably also remove most or all of the lymph nodes in the area while they are removing the tumour. This is called axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) or axillary clearance.
Radiotherapy to the chest wall can help to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back in the treated area.
Read more about radiotherapy.
If your cancer has hormone receptors that help the cancer to grow (oestrogen-receptor positive (ER+) cancer), you may have hormone therapy drugs. Most inflammatory breast cancers are hormone-receptor positive.
Read more about hormone therapy for breast cancer.
If your cancer has a high number of HER2 protein receptors, you might have targeted therapy (trastuzumab).
Read more about targeted therapies.
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