Fatoumata Diallo
Writing for the Sciences
Professor Zayas
April 2, 2025
Literature review: Rough Draft
Introduction
Breast cancer is a form of cancer that occurs in women and can very rarely occur in men and is seen when either tumor suppressor or oncogenes mutate. Inflammatory Breast Cancer is a rare and very aggressive form of breast Cancer. It only accounts for 1% to 5% of all Breast Cancer. It is called “inflammatory” because some of the symptoms cause the breast to look inflamed due to cancer cells blocking lymph vessels in the skin. IBC typically does not have the same symptoms as other forms of breast Cancer and doesn’t always show up on mammograms making it harder to diagnose. Typical treatments for IBC include chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Inflammatory breast cancer is the least talked about form of breast cancer and has the least amount of awareness. Breast cancer awareness is crucial because it allows for women to get screened and early screening saves lives, awareness also raises funds for women to afford treatments. There is a huge gap between the survival rates for IBC compared to other forms of breast cancer.
Descriptions:
Inflammatory Breast Cancer is an aggressive and rapid spreading form of breast cancer; it accounts for 2-4% of all breast cancers and is responsible for 7% of all breast cancer related deaths (Chippa, Barazi, 2023). There are two subcategories of Inflammatory breast cancer: Primary IBC and secondary IBC. Primary IBC the cancer develops in a healthy breast while in secondary the cancer reoccurs or shows up where a previous breast cancer occurred. Most IBC are hormone receptor negative meaning they have shorter disease-free survival; IBC also has excessive amounts of her2 proteins which lead to rapid growth of the tumor. The p53 tumor suppressor gene( tsg) plays a huge role in IBC, Mutation, or the increase of the p53 tsg happens in “20-50%” of all breast cancers including IBC and is linked to hereditary breast cancers syndrome it often associated with larger tumors and higher chance of death, this become worser when p53 tsg is combined with negative estrogen receptors this only increases the risk of death (Chippa, Barazi, 2023). There was also an overexpression of the RhoC GTPase oncogene. The RhoC GTPase oncogene contributes to the aggression of IBC.
Symptoms & Diagnosis
Symptoms of IBC occur rapidly in this particular cancer. They can include erythema(redness), edema(swelling), and orange peel appearance. IBC spreads fast so often redness can cover 1/3 of the breast, also within a few days the skin can change from pink to dark red/purple (Fattahi et al., 2022).
Doctors diagnose IBC through 2 ways; clinically and pathologically. IBC can be often misdiagnosed with other conditions such as melanoma and other metastatic cancers. “IBC needs to be Both clinically and pathologically diagnosed. A core needle is used to verify the invasive carcinoma, while a skin biopsy shows a dermal lymphatic invasion” (Chippa, Barazi, 2023).since Inflammatory Breast Cancer is a very fast spreading carcinoma its harder to diagnose, pathological and clinical methods are best for an accurate diagnosis DLI cannot only confirm IBC because it can be found in other breast cancer. Only 10% of IBC cases are detected through mammograms, many people are often misdiagnosed, they are often told take anti-biotic (Chippa, Barazi, 2023). , Mammographs are not effective, but ultrasound helps with finding the tumor and lymph nodes, MRI are great for tracking the tumor and PET/CT scans help with tracking tumor growth (Robertson et al., 2010).. Imaging are extremely helpful when tracking tumor and tumor growth,
Treatments
Typical Treatment for IBC consists of a combination of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. Chemotherapy is an important type of systemic treatment because it shrinks the tumor before surgery and studies had shown that Neoadjuvant chemotherapy has resulted to higher PCR (pathologic complete response) rates in er negative IBC (Chainitikun et al., 2021). Higher PCR rates can mean an increase in survival. Targeted therapies are another form of IBC treatment but there is limited information on them. If the cancer is HER-2 positive, targeted therapy trastuzumab is given along with the chemo, sometimes along with another targeted drug, Pertuzumab
Current treatment for IBC is Radiation and is often extremely aggressive due to high dosages and is often very toxic for IBC patients. Thats why a new treatment Intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) is a developing.t. It is a form of radiotherapy that is meant to target and shrink the tumor while minimizing the exposure to other organs. IMPT reduces the toxicity of the radiation due to accuracy rapid dose fall-off (Fattahi et al., 2022). In this study (2016-2020) they test the possibility of IMPT. They treated 19 IBC patients with adjuvant IMPT, treatment planning started 4-7 weeks (about 1 and a half months) post-op. They used Ct scan to CTV coverage and dosage. The Radiation targeted the chest wall, lymph nodes, and skin (Fattahi et al., 2022. Results showed the IMPT can be a treatment for IBC.
Works Cited
Chippa, V., & Barazi, H. (2023, April 16). Inflammatory breast cancer. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK564324/#article-111445.s2
Chainitikun, S., Saleem, S., Lim, B., Valero, V., & Ueno, N. T. (2021). Update on systemic treatment for newly diagnosed inflammatory breast cancer. Journal of Advanced Research, 29, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jare.2020.08.014
Fattahi, S., Mullikin, T. C., Aziz, K. A., Afzal, A., Smith, N. L., Francis, L. N., Harmsen, W. S., Routman, D. M., Remmes, N. B., Ahmed, S. K., Shumway, D. A., Park, S. S., Mutter, R. W., & Corbin, K. S. (2022). Proton therapy for the treatment of inflammatory breast cancer. Radiotherapy and Oncology, 171, 77–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radonc.2022.04.008
Robertson, F. M., Bondy, M., Yang, W., Yamauchi, H., Wiggins, S., Kamrudin, S., Krishnamurthy, S., Le-Petross, H., Bidaut, L., Player, A. N., Barsky, S. H., Woodward, W. A., Buchholz, T., Lucci, A., Ueno, N., & Cristofanilli, M. (2010). Inflammatory breast cancer: The disease, the biology, the treatment. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 60(6), 351–375. https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.20082
