You may wonder why you need to be concerned about a rare form of breast cancer called Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC).
After all, IBC accounts for less than three per cent of all breast cancers?
I'll give you three reasons for concern:
1. The 5-year survival rate of all breast cancers is nearly 90 per cent, but the 5-year survival rate for IBC patients is FAR lower as low as 40 per cent
2. In the early stages, IBC is much less likely to be accurately diagnosed compared to other forms of breast cancer
3. Awareness of the early symptoms is the key to survival So if you know the symptoms of IBC, and you tell your daughter, and she tells her friends, and her friends tell their mothers, and their mothers tell their sisters, and their sisters tell their aunts and uncles and fathers and cousins and grandparents - if that chain is set into motion by every one of us, lives will be saved!
Not quite what you expected? Let us say that you're in the shower and you feel a swollen spot near the skin's surface on one of your breasts. When you dry off you notice the spot is red, tender and warm to the touch.
Would you think breast cancer? Probably not. In fact, most GP's/Doctors don't think it's breast cancer either, so these typical IBC symptoms are often diagnosed as a simple infection and treated with antibiotics.
The swelling and redness is caused by blocked lymph vessels in the skin. And that's very bad news.
The lymphatic vessels are "the highways out of the breast to the rest of the body." And that's one of the key factors that make this cancer very dangerous: It spreads so quickly that by the time it's diagnosed it's usually metastasized.
Definition of Metastasize: The ability to invade and metastasize are the defining characteristics of a cancer. Invasion refers to the ability of cancer cells to penetrate through the membranes that separate them from healthy tissues and blood vessels. Metastasis can refer either to the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body, or to the condition produced by this spread. The English word metastasis (plural, metastases) comes from a Greek word that means "a change." The tumors produced by metastasis sometimes are called secondary tumors. metastasis is responsible for 90% of the deaths caused by cancer.
Here's what else we know about IBC:
* Most IBC patients don't feel a lump - the breast cancer symptom they search for in self-exams
* Mammograms don't detect IBC
* Statistics show that women under the age of 50 and black women appear to be at highest risk
* Most cases of IBC are diagnosed at stage III (locally advanced) and stage IV (advanced to other organs) Glimmer of good news:
There's no way around it - IBC treatment must be aggressive and usually involves chemotherapy, followed by surgery and radiation.
That's the bad news. And frankly, there is precious little good news.
I have found one study that showed how whole-body FDG-PET/CT exams were able to accurately detect just how much the disease had spread. But FDG-PET/CT scans are costly and put a patient at greater danger. You see PET scans use "labelling agents" that are radioactive.
So "Adding a CT scan is insult to injury - a whole-body CT, I'm told, is equal to something like 350 standard chest film x-rays...that's alot of radiation (plus the PET scan radioactivity). Seems to me the best shot, if you're going conventional at all, is assume metastases are already there and treat accordingly, saving the huge cost and considerable radiation insult."
I have also found some recent research that offered one glimmer of good news in the treatment of this disease: L-glutamine.
L-glutamine is a key amino acid that's essential to immune function. According to a study conducted in the late 90s, when L-glutamine is given with chemotherapy, such as methotrexate, the amino acid significantly reduces chemo toxicity.
That's it though, that's the end of the good news. After adding L-glutamine to chemotherapy, there's only one way to bring better news to the IBC story:
Do get the word out! Please forward this article to every woman you know so that future IBC patients might have a better chance of catching this disease when it's at its most treatable.
Terry O'Brien BackTrouble.co.uk Sources:
"What is IBC and is it Worse Than Regular Breast Cancer?" The Boston Globe. USA "PET/CT May Improve Prognosis For Patients With Inflammatory Breast Cancer" Science Daily,sciencedaily.com "Glutamine: The Essential 'Non-Essential' Amino Acid" Ivy Greenwell, Live Extension Magazine, September 1999.
Terry has been involved in General Medicine for over 20 years, he is a keen sports player and still turns out most Saturdays on the Rugby pitch, although his body wishes that he didn't!
Dragged up in Liverpool and supporting the BLUE half of Merseyside. Terry went on to study Medicine and initially serve in HM Forces, serving all over the world and completing just over 15 years service.
Terry launched Back Trouble UK, during 2007, however the Therapist Directory did not go online until January 2008. The main reason that Terry launched the website was so that people in the UK who were suffering from a Back Condition. Would have access to quality, clear, jargon free Back Pain Health Information, and online access to UK Registered Back Pain Practitioners. Other Sites: www.Back-Pain-Treatments.net & www.Sciatica-Treatments.co.uk
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You may wonder why you need to be concerned about a rare form of breast cancer called Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC). 
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