Inflammatory Breast Cancer 10-year Survival Rate

The Tnm System For Staging Breast Cancer

The AJCCs addition of the letters T, N, and M for anatomic breast cancer staging adds more information to a breast cancer diagnosis. Heres what they mean:

• T : The tumor grade shows a higher number for a larger size or density.
• N : Nodes refers to lymph nodes and uses the numerals 0 to 3 to give information about how many lymph nodes are involved in the cancer.
• M : This refers to how the cancer has spread beyond the breast and lymph nodes.

The AJCC also added clarifications in staging for ER, PR, and HER2 expression and also genetic information.

Ultimately, this means someone diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer can receive more information from their breast cancer staging than ever before.

No matter the stage, the best source of information about your individual outlook is your own oncology team.

Make sure you understand your breast cancer stage and subtype so that you can better understand treatment options and individual outlook.

Getting the right treatment and the support you need can help you navigate the challenges of being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.

Afraid Of Your Inflammatory Breast Cancer Diagnosis Youre Not Alone

Receiving an inflammatory breast cancer diagnosis can be very frightening. Some common fears and concerns of IBC patients include:

• Emotional and physical pain
• Fear of recurrence

As an IBC patient at Siteman, you can take comfort in knowing that you will be in the hands of compassionate and experienced providers who will support you throughout your cancer journey.

We offer many patient and family services to help you and your loved ones cope with the difficulties of cancer treatment. These services include free psychological services for patients and immediate family members, spiritual care, interpreter services, social workers, financial and logistical support, palliative care, advanced pain management, registered dietitians, genetic testing and counseling, support groups and a survivorship program.

Stage 3 Breast Cancer

Stage 3 breast cancer has spread outside the breast but not to distant sites. The cancer is typically in nearby lymph nodes or skin.

Stage 3 breast cancer is typically harder to treat than earlier stages. This, however, ultimately depends on several factors, including:

• hormone receptivity

A doctor can help a person better understand the stage of cancer and how that will affect treatment options and their outlook.

Healthcare professionals distinguish between the following stages of stage 3 breast cancer:

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Prognosis For Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare form of invasive breast cancer that is characterized by distinct changes to the breast, including inflamed skin. It is associated with a worse prognosis relative to other forms of advanced breast cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rates for women with inflammatory breast cancer, by SEER stage, are:

• Regional 54 percent
• Distant 19 percent

Inflammatory Breast Cancer Symptoms

Unlike most forms of breast cancer, IBC doesn’t cause a distinct breast lump. Instead, the first sign is usually breast swelling and reddening that rapidly gets worse over just a few weeks, according to Mehra Golshan, MD, clinical director of the Breast Program at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital.

Since IBC can start with a minor skin irritation including redness, itchiness, swelling, and ridges in the skin, some people may mistake it for a skin rash, hives, or bug bites.

It becomes easier to distinguish IBC from a rash or insect bite when these symptoms don’t improve and begin to coincide with other symptoms including:

• Redness covering more than one-third of the breast
• Purplish discoloration that looks like bruising
• Dimpling of the breast skin, which is often compared to the texture of an orange peel
• Skin thickening on the breast
• Rapidly increasing breast size and/or heaviness
• Breast tenderness, aching, itchiness, or general pain
• Enlarged lymph nodes around the collarbone or under the arm
• An inverted or flattened nipple
• An unusual sensation of warmth in the breast

These symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer will typically develop within three to six months, and worsen within just several weeks to several months, says Golshan. Almost all IBC patients experience enlarged lymph nodes, according to Golshan.

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How Long Do People With Inflammatory Breast Cancer Live

Percent means how many out of 100. The 5-year survival rate for people with inflammatory breast cancer is 41%. However, survival rates vary depending on the stage, tumor grade, certain features of the cancer, and the treatment given. If the cancer has spread to the regional lymph nodes, the 5-year survival rate is 56%.

Prognosis For Stage 2 Breast Cancer

In stage 2 breast cancer, cancer cells have continued to multiply in the breast tissue and possibly nearby lymph nodes. The standard treatment is still surgery, although chemotherapy and drug therapy may be used in some cases. The five-year survival rate for stage 2 breast cancer is usually greater than 90 percent.

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What Is A 5

A relative survival rate compares women with the same type and stage of breast cancer to women in the overall population.For example, if the 5-year relative survival rate for a specific stage of breast cancer is 90%, it means that women who have that cancer are, on average, about 90% as likely as women who dont have that cancer to live for at least 5 years after being diagnosed.

What Causes Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Most inflammatory breast cancer is considered invasive ductal carcinoma. Ductal carcinoma is cancer that forms from cells lining your milk ducts. An invasive ductal carcinoma is cancer that spreads beyond your milk ducts, invading healthy tissue. Researchers dont know what causes these cells to become malignant .

Inflammatory breast cancer develops when cancer cells block lymph vessels. Lymph vessels are hollow tubes in your lymphatic system that allow lymph fluid to drain out of your breast. The blockage causes your breast to become red, swollen and inflamed. In most cases of IBC, cancer cells spread outward from your lymph vessels. Cancer that has metastasized affects your other organs and is harder to treat.

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How Is Ibc Different From Other Types Of Breast Cancer

Unlike with other types of breast cancers, only 15 percent of people diagnosed with IBC have a lump. Thats why it can be mistaken for breast infections or injuries because of the redness and swelling it causes. While its possible to detect IBC on a mammogram, the imaging device may not recognize evidence of disease because the cancer forms in layers.

More women than men are affected by IBC, and it tends to be seen in younger women than other breast cancers. Black women are also at a slightly higher risk of the disease than white women, and being overweight or obese is also known risk factor for IBC.

Prognosis For Stage 4 Breast Cancer

Stage 4 breast cancer is the most advanced-stage breast cancer. Its distinguished by the presence of metastases, or new tumors on other organs after the cancer has spread to different parts of the body. It is treatable with chemotherapy and drug therapy, but it is not curable.

Due to the advanced nature of the disease, stage 4 breast cancer has a poorer prognosis. The five-year survival rate is around 29 percent for women and 22 percent for men, according to Cancer.Net.

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Clinical Presentation And Differential Diagnosis

As its name implies, IBC presents as an inflamed-appearing breast with generalized edema and skin thickening, which is often referred to aspeau dorange. The spectrum of IBC symptoms is broadsome patients have diffuse breast involvement associated with skin dimpling and nipple retraction others have more subtle findings, with only faint central skin erythema, and these symptoms can be particularly challenging to discern in women with darker skin tones.

IBC can be categorized as one of three different types: primary IBC, secondary IBC, and locally recurrent breast cancer presenting as IBC. International IBC experts have defined primary IBC as those cases where the breast symptoms had a rapid onset and where at least one-third of the breast skin is involved. Secondary IBC implies the presence of an untreated/neglected breast cancer that progressed into an inflammatory state. Sadly, some patients will experience an inflammatory recurrence following appropriate treatment for an early-stage breast cancer. Regardless of the prior cancer history, the clinical management of all three IBC patterns is the same.

George Somlo, Veronica Jones, in, 2018

Treatment Of Locally Advanced And Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Patients with locally advanced breast cancer include patients with large primary tumors , tumors involving the chest wall, skin involvement, ulceration or satellite skin nodules, inflammatory carcinoma, bulky or fixed axillary nodes, and clinically apparent internal mammary or supraclavicular nodal involvement . Central to treatment is the concept that the disease is advanced on the chest wall, in regional lymph nodes, or both with no evidence of metastasis to distant sites. These patients are recognized to be at significant risk for the development of subsequent metastases, and treatment must address the risk for local and systemic relapse. Experience before the 1970s demonstrated that surgery alone provided poor local control, with local relapse rates of 30% to 50% and mortality rates of 70%. Similar results were reported when radiation therapy was the sole modality of treatment. Current management includes surgery, radiation therapy, and systemic therapy, with the sequence and extent of treatment determined by specifics of the patients circumstance.

A. Sahin, H. Zhang, in, 2014

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Women With Inflammatory Breast Cancer Are Living Longer But The Gap Between White And Black Patients Persists

A U-M Rogel Cancer Center study provides an updated, more comprehensive look at trends for this rare, aggressive form of breast cancer over the last four decades.

Women with inflammatory breast cancer a rare, highly aggressive form of the disease are living about twice as long after diagnosis than their counterparts in the mid-to-late 1970s, according to a new University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center study.

The researchers found that from 1973-1977, patients diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, also known as IBC, survived for an average of about 50 months, compared to 100 months for patients diagnosed from 2008-2012.

But despite overall improvements in survival, the analysis showed an ongoing disparity between white patients and Black patients. And while the gap has narrowed slightly over time, white patients today still tend to live about two years longer than their Black peers, the group found.

The incidence of IBC among Black women is also more than 70% higher than in white women, affecting 4.5 Black women out of 100,000 compared to 2.6 white women, according to the study, which was published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Prognosis For Stage 0 Breast Cancer

Stage 0 breast cancer is the earliest form of breast cancer and is noninvasive, meaning cancer cells are located only in the milk ducts. It is also usually referred to as ductal carcinoma in situ .

Once a person with DCIS undergoes surgery to remove the affected breast tissue, they have a very good prognosis, with a five-year survival rate of 100 percent. Although a person may experience a recurrence, which is when the cancer comes back as an invasive disease, most cases of DCIS are cured after initial treatment.

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Survival For Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Many factors can influence life expectancy for women with inflammatory breast cancer. These include:

• the exact position of the cancer
• how big the cancer is and whether it has spread only to the lymph nodes or to other organs
• how abnormal the cancer cells look under the microscope
• whether the cancer cells have receptors for hormone therapies
• how well the cancer responds to treatment

Inflammatory breast cancer can develop quickly and may spread to other parts of the body. So, in general, the outlook with this type is not as good as for women diagnosed with other types of breast cancer. But doctors think that the outlook is improving as breast cancer treatment improves.

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Improving Survival Rates For Breast Cancer

While early detection of breast cancer results in better treatment outcomes, research is ongoing to improve survival for those with metastatic disease or more aggressive forms of breast cancer. There have been significant advances in recent years: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved newer breast cancer treatment approaches, such as immunotherapy drugs, that are more effective against TNBC than standard treatments.

Although progress is being made, there is still much work to be done. Continued participation in oncology clinical trials research studies on the effects of new treatments can advance the discovery of more effective therapies and lead to improved outcomes for advanced breast cancer.

Beyond medical interventions, some lifestyle changes may help people living with breast cancer live longer, including maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, and getting sufficient exercise.

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Survival Rates By Stage

Breast cancer survival rates compare the number of women with breast cancer to the number of women in the overall population to estimate the amount of time women with breast cancer are likely to live after theyre diagnosed.

For example, if the survival rate for a stage of breast cancer during a 5-year period is 90 percent, it means that women diagnosed with that cancer are 90 percent as likely to survive for 5 years following their diagnosis as women who do not have the cancer.

As we mentioned earlier, survival rates are based on information from the SEER database, which the NCI maintains.

SEER does not group breast cancers by stages 0 through 4. Instead, it groups them by the following stages:

• localized: when the cancer has not spread outside of the breast
• regional: when its spread outside the breast to nearby structures or lymph nodes
• distant: when its spread to other parts of the body, such as the liver, lungs, or bones

It should be noted that theres a substantial racial disparity gap in survival rates between white women and Women of Color, especially for late-stage breast cancer diagnoses. The chart below, courtesy of the

Clinical Trials For Ibc

Research is ongoing to improve treatment for IBC.

New therapies are being studied in clinical trials. The results of these trials will decide whether these therapies will become part of the standard of care.

After discussing the benefits and risks with your health care provider, we encourage you to consider joining a clinical trial.

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What Makes Ibc Different

Inflammatory breast cancer accounts for only a tiny fraction of breast cancers, so its symptoms are less well known and the disease has received less attention from researchers. It also has different physical signs than other types of breast cancer instead of a lump, IBC causes swelling and visible changes in the skin around the breast including redness and a dimpling of the skin called peau d’orange, which is French for the skin of an orange.

IBC also tends to show up in women at a younger age and spread more quickly than other types of cancer. And because the cancer cells have already grown into the skin by the time symptoms appear, its typically diagnosed at stage 3 or stage 4.

Unlike strides made against other types of breast cancer, there arent yet any targeted therapies against IBC.

Outcomes In Inflammatory Breast Cancer Improved With Modern Treatment

A modern approach to treatment of inflammatory breast cancer may improve patient outcomes compared with historical standards among patients with estrogen receptor -positive/HER2-positive disease, according to a retrospective study presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium .

The 5-year relapse-free survival for patients with inflammatory breast cancer is approximately 40% with standard treatment of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, and postmastectomy radiation. The aim of this study was to evaluate response to more modern therapies and breast reconstruction.

The retrospective registry study evaluated 68 patients with inflammatory breast cancer diagnosed between 2006 and 2019 at a single institution. The median follow-up was 1.83 years.

At baseline, the median age was 55 years, and tumors were ER-negative/HER2-negative, ER-negative/HER2-positive, and ER-positive/HER2-positive. The majority of patients received doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide and paclitaxel as their neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimen.

The shortest 5-year RFS was reported in patients with ER-negative/HER2-negative disease , whereas RFS was longer in patients with ER-positive/HER2-negative, ER-positive/HER2-positive, and ER-negative/HER2-positive disease , albeit this was not significant .

Reference

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What Does Stage 3 Mean

Because stage 3 breast cancer has spread outside the breast, it can be harder to treat than earlier stage breast cancer, though that depends on a few factors.

With aggressive treatment, stage 3 breast cancer is curable however, the risk that the cancer will grow back after treatment is high.

Doctors further divide stage 3 cancer into the following stages:

Breast Cancer Survival By Age

Five-year survival for female breast cancer shows an unusual pattern with age: survival gradually increases from 85% in women aged 15-39 and peaks at 92% in 60-69 year olds survival falls thereafter, reaching its lowest point of 70% in 80-99 year-olds for patients diagnosed with breast cancer in England during 2009-2013.

Breast Cancer , Five-Year Net Survival by Age, Women, England, 2009-2013

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