Cancer

Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare type of cancer that occurs mainly in young women which is pretty unusual for cancer in general and for breast cancer in particular because normally age is considered a risk factor for breast cancer. It is unusual as symptom and manifestation, too, because this type of breast cancer does not show any lump in the breast, so it will not be detected during the regular screenings and mammograms. It is only possible to be detected a bit earlier if the doctor uses a thermagraphic screening that shows the temperature of the breast tissue on the computer screen and if the diagnosis is inflammatory breast cancer, the thermic image will show an increased temperature in the breast area. This type of cancer usually occurs only in one breast, but there are some cases when it occurs in both breasts at the same time.



The only way to treat it is by surgery, so the patient will have to undergo complete mastectomy. Normally, this will be followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but the results are only rarely positive. This happens because the patients usually come to the doctor when the symptoms are more prominent and that happens when the cancer is already metastatic, that is it has spread to other parts of the body and it is very hard to stop it then. That is exactly the reason why inflammatory breast cancer death rate is so high, almost 60% of the cases, which is incredibly high for cancer and for any type of disease as a matter of fact.



When inflammatory breast cancer is incipient, that is in its first stages, it is very hard to detect because the signs and symptoms are normally mistaken for the symptoms of mastitis or other breast infection which leads to inflammation. So when it occurs in women who breast feed it is normal to misdiagnose it, but you should wonder about that when it occurs in non pregnant women or in women who do not breast feed at the moment. If the general practitioner thinks it  is mastitis, the patient will be asked to follow an antibiotic treatment. When it is obvious that the treatment does not show any improvements in the health state, go to the doctor immediately.

Though rare, inflammatory breast cancer does appear and it is better to know what to do in case we have some signs that say we are not doing well and , even if the doctor says it is just an infection, in case of doubt ask for a second opinion. I strongly suggest you to do this because, as you see, the inflammatory breast cancer death rate is incredibly high and you cannot risk being one of those who contributed to rising the statistics.



They say that information is power, so stay informed and try to find out more details about this disease on other web sites that can give you more specialized information that might be helpful some time in your life -