October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but many women aren't aware of one of the most aggressive forms of the disease.
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) accounts for only one to five percent of all breast cancers, but less than half of diagnosed patients survive.
IBC is an advanced form of breast cancer usually not detected by mammograms or ultrasounds. Usually a biopsy is needed.
Dr. Kelly Martinez, a breast surgeon in North Austin, uses digital scans to look for abnormalities in the breast tissue. She said sometimes IBC is more difficult to detect because it doesn't always form in lumps.
"It typically is diagnosed at a higher stage and usually has a worse prognosis," she said.
With IBC, cancer cells grow more rapidly and are met with aggressive treatment.
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Inflammatory breast cancer
Fewer than five percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer will have IBC, but it's one of the most aggressive forms.
 
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"Treatment is different in that those patients get chemotherapy first. We call that neoadjutant chemotherapy. Then after that they receive their surgery, then radiation, then hormonal therapy," Martinez said.
As with all breast cancer, early detection is key. Martinez says IBC has some definite symptoms to look for, but she encourages all women to examines their bodies for anything out of the ordinary.
"Redness of the skin of the breasts. The breasts may enlarge or become swollen. Some people report the breasts' skin looking like the skin of an orange so we call that peau d'orange. The breast may feel heavy and achy and it's usually associated with people feeling palpable lymph nodes under their arm or collar bone," she said.
Martinez also says the onset for inflammatory breast cancer is younger than the onset for invasive breast cancer. The average age of onset for IBC is 45-55.
There are also new drugs for IBC such as Herceptin® (Trastuzumab) that work by interrupting the signal that tells cancer cells to divide, which results in cell death.
