How To Treat Inflammatory Breast Cancer

16 Jul

Posted by Admin as Uncategorized

Inflammatory breast cancer presents several unique treatment challenges. The symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer — which include redness and thickening of the breast — differ from those of typical, non-inflammatory breast cancer. Many women with inflammatory breast cancer do not have an associated breast lump, which can make the disease more difficult to detect.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer Treated

Inflammatory breast cancer is an aggressive cancer that can spread quickly. Treatment options include:

Surgery. If the inflammatory breast cancer has not spread beyond the breast, a mastectomy can be performed to remove the tumor. However, mastectomy has been known to increase the chance of recurrence because inflammatory breast cancer involves the lymph nodes of the skin - and the skin is stitched together after mastectomy.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the use of anti-cancer (cytotoxic) drugs to destroy cancer cells. Chemotherapy helps to treat and control the disease in the breast itself, and reduce any swelling. As the chemotherapy travels all over the body, it will treat any cancer that may have spread beyond the breast to other parts of the body.

Radiation

Radiation, like chemotherapy, reaches and damages both cancerous and normal cells. It makes use of the fact that cancer cells are weak and confused, with damaged DNA, and cannot heal themselves the way normal cells do. Because radiation is a beam, it can be aimed and focused very precisely on areas known or suspected to contain malignant cells, limiting the damage to healthy tissue. Because it causes damage to every cell it touches, the treatment is spread over a period of weeks to allow normal cells to recover between treatments.

Hormonal therapy, such as tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor, may be recommended if the cancer cells have hormone receptors on them. Hormonal therapies are taken as a tablet once a day for at least 5 years. More information on hormonal therapies is available on this site.

Patients who have another type of receptor, called the HER2 receptor, on their breast cancer cells may benefit from treatment with a drug called trastuzumab (Herceptin®). Overall, about one quarter of patients with breast cancer have HER2 receptors on their cancer cells. The rate is a little higher for patients with inflammatory breast cancer.