Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare but very dangerous type of cancer, and the survival rate is also worse than in other forms of breast cancers. Often it causes redness and warmth in the breast skin. Sometimes doctors might misdiagnose it as just a simple infection.
Inflammatory breast cancer tends to occur in younger women and also occur in older age men. This kind of breast cancer accounts only 1 to 5 percent of all other breast cancers in the United States. Mostly African Americans tends to be diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer more frequently.
Inflammatory Breast Cancer Symptoms:
The Symptoms of Inflammatory breast cancer are quite different from other kinds of breast cancers. It is difficult for patient or even the doctor to diagnose the cancer in early stage as the infection involved around the breast looks like a normal infection and sometimes the patient will be put on antibiotics as well. Only after several weeks when the patient feels pain and swelling on her breast, the doctor opts for further diagnosis.
Some of the common symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer are as follows:
- Breast swelling and warmth.
- Pain around the breast.
- Breast looks red and causes itching.
- Enlarged lymph nodes under the arm.
- Retraction of the nipple.
The inflammatory breast cancer is confirmed based on biopsy and breast ultrasound diagnosis. It is also classified in two stages, stage IIIB or stage IV. At Stage IV the cancer would have spread to other organs and survival rate for patients with stage IV inflammatory breast cancer is very low. So, early detection of this cancer could increase the cure rate considerably.
Since each patient with inflammatory breast cancer is unique, the survival rate and cure rate might differ substantially. Women should do self breast exams and medical check ups regularly. Also remember that practicing a healthy lifestyle and having children before the age of thirty decreases the chance of getting inflammatory breast cancer.