Miami Breast Cancer Conference

Here is some recent information about Inflammatory breast cancer found in CURE Magazine. There is hope. We are not being forgotten. The medical field is still trying to figure us out. They are making great strides.



INFORMATION FROM CURE MAGAZINE
June 2009
Miami Breast Cancer Conference

Treatment Updates From the Miami Breast Cancer Conference
BY DEBU TRIPATHY, MD

New Insights Into Inflammatory Breast Cancer
Inflammatory breast cancer is responsible for about 1 to 5 percent of all new breast cancer diagnoses in the United States and is more common in younger and African-American women. It has an aggressive behavior, and in the past was associated with a 90 to 95 percent mortality rate, which has improved significantly with the use of chemotherapy and biological therapy, including Herceptin (trastuzumab) for HER2-positive breast cancers, followed by surgery and radiation, with about 40 percent of patients now surviving.
IBC cells tend to have a higher grade and are more likely to be negative for hormone receptors and positive for HER2 protein overexpression—all markers of higher risk. It has recently been suggested from gene profiling studies that IBC and non-IBC are distinct biologic entities and may have differences in signaling pathways and angiogenesis, the formation of blood vessels to the tumor. There are specific proteins that give IBC a tendency to hone in on blood vessels in the skin, a feature that gives IBC its name owing to the redness and swelling in the skin over the breast. Clinical trials using newer HER2-targeting therapies, such as Tykerb (lapatinib) for HER2-positive IBC or the antiangiogenic agent Avastin (bevacizumab), show promising results with response rates higher than seen with conventional therapies.
The discovery of unique pathways, in addition to those driven by HER2 overexpression, has revealed many new targets for future trials. In addition, imaging tests such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and PET (positron emission tomography) scans may be valuable tools to assess early response and to compare different drugs being evaluated in clinical trials. There is still much room for improvement in the early detection and better tailored treatment for this unusual variant of breast cancer.