Inflammatory Breast Cancer - Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Which doctor treats inflammatory breast cancer?

Inflammatory breast cancer is treated by an oncologist / surgical oncologist.

2. Can IBC resemble breast infection?

Inflammatory breast cancer has symptoms that are a lot like mastitis or breast infection. Mastitis is more common in pregnant or breastfeeding women. If you have been diagnosed with mastitis and antibiotic treatment does not seem to help, you might need a skin biopsy to rule out IBC.


3. What are the risk factors of inflammatory breast cancer?

Factors that increase the risk of inflammatory breast cancer include the following:

• Women are more likely to be diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer than men. However, men can also develop the disease.
• Race is shown to be a factor. Black women have a higher risk as compared to white women.
• Obese people have a greater risk than those with normal weight.

4. If I have a bilateral mastectomy (surgical removal of both breasts), can IBC recur at other sites of the body?

IBC can recur, even in the absence of breasts or reconstructed breasts. This is because the tumor cells from the primary tumor may escape to other sites and survive chemotherapy. These cells often remain dormant at the distant sites for months or years. It is unknown what triggers them to start growing again to cause detectable metastases.

5. What are the stages of the inflammatory breast cancer?

Staging is designed to help organize the different treatment plans and to understand the prognosis better.

Stages of IBC:

• Stage IIIB- The cancer has spread to tissues near the breast like the skin, ribs, muscles in the chest, and lymph nodes within the breast or under the arms.
• Stage IIIC- The cancer has spread beyond stage IIIB to lymph nodes under the collarbone and around the neck.
• Stage IV- The cancer has spread to other organs like the bones, lungs, liver, and/or brain.

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