Skin Changes in Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Role of MRI in Evaluation of Treatment Response

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer, accounting for 2%-4% of breast cancer cases in the United States ( 1 Chang S Parker SL Pham T et al. Inflammatory breast carcinoma incidence and survival: the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results program of the National Cancer Institute, 1975-1992. Cancer. 1998; 82: 2366-2372 Crossref PubMed Scopus (209) Google Scholar ). IBC is a clinical diagnosis, characterized by rapid-onset of an inflamed-appearing breast with generalized edema and skin thickening (referred to as peau d'orange) without an underlying mass in the presence of pathologic evidence of breast cancer ( 2 Edge SB Compton CC The American joint committee on cancer: the 7th edition of the AJCC cancer staging manual and the future of TNM. Ann Surg Oncol. 2010; 17: 1471-1474 Crossref PubMed Scopus (5637) Google Scholar ). Compared to other subtypes, IBC has a higher recurrence rate and tumor-related morbidity and mortality, with a 40.5% 5-year overall survival rate ( 3 Cristofanilli M Valero V Buzdar AU et al. Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) and patterns of recurrence: understanding the biology of a unique disease. Cancer. 2007; 110: 1436-1444 Crossref PubMed Scopus (153) Google Scholar ).