A new study has reported that inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) patients continue to have poorer survival than those with comparably staged non-IBC despite breast cancer treatment advances. The study compared outcomes of women with IBC to those with non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer (i.e., cancer that is characterized by large size (greater than 5 cm), may have positive lymph nodes, and may have spread to other tissues near the breast such as the skin or muscle). Significant improvements in the survival of women with breast cancer have occurred in recent years, improvements that have been attributed to a multidisciplinary approach and the introduction of improved chemotherapy and endocrine regimens. To conduct the study, 4,304 women with stage IIIB or IIIC breast cancer diagnosed between 2004 and 2007 were identified using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. The women were categorized as either having IBC or non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer and were followed for a median of 19 months. Breast cancer-specific survival was estimated and results were adjusted for patient and tumor characteristics. A total of 828 (19.2%) of the women had stage IIIB/C IBC while 3,476 (80.8%) had stage IIIB/C non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer.

The two-year breast cancer-specific survival rate was 90% for the entire study group, 84% among women with IBC, and 91% among women with non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer. Using a multivariable model, women with IBC were found to have a 43% increased risk of breast cancer-specific death compared to those with non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer. The authors conclude that even in the era of multidisciplinary management and anthracycline-based and taxane-based polychemotherapy regimens, women with IBC continue to have worse survival compared with those with non-IBC locally advanced breast cancer.