Trimodal Therapy for Inflammatory Breast Cancer: A Surgeon’s Perspective

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare and most aggressive form of breast cancer. The onset and progression of disease are rapid; diagnosis must be made expediently to initiate treatment quickly. In this review, the clinical presentation, trimodal therapy, surgical principles and a brief summary of the Louisiana State University at Shreveport experience with IBC are presented. With this aggressive approach, 5-year survival of better than 40–50% can be expected. This represents a substantive improvement in clinical outcome for IBC patients compared with 30 years ago.