Inflammatory breast cancer: an overview

Abstract

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is the most aggressive entity of breast cancer. Management involves coordination of multidisciplinary management and usually includes neoadjuvant chemotherapy, ablative surgery if a tumor-free resection margin is expected and locoregional radiotherapy. This multimodal therapeutic approach has significantly improved patient survival. However, the median overall survival among women with IBC is still poor. By elucidating the biologic characteristics of IBC, new treatment options may become available. We performed a comprehensive review of the English-language literature on IBC through computerized literature searches. The objective of the current review is to present an overview of the literature related to the biology, imaging and multidisciplinary treatment of inflammatory breast cancer.

Keywords: Inflammatory breast cancer; Molecular characteristics; Surgery; Treatment.