What Is Inflammatory Breast Disease?

Significance

• Inflammatory breast disease accounts for only 1 to 6 percent of all cases of breast cancer in the United States, according to the Mayo Clinic.
  
  

Identification

• Inflammatory breast disease occurs when the lymphatic tissues between your skin and breast begins to divide and grow uncontrollably, producing inflammation and a number of symptoms.
  
  

Types of Symptoms

• Symptoms of inflammatory breast disease include swelling that affects only one breast, redness or a bruised appearance of breast tissue, warmth or itching, an orange peel appearance to the skin on your breast, tenderness, aching, swelling under your arm, nipple inversion, crusting or scales around your nipple, and changes in the color of your areola.
  
  

Time Frame

• The symptoms of inflammatory breast cancer develop quickly and may become severe in a matter of days or weeks, according to the Mayo Clinic.
  
  

Treatment

• Doctors typically begin treatment for inflammatory breast disease with chemotherapy and then use a combination of radiation, drugs that lower estrogen levels and sometimes mastectomy surgery or removal of the affected breast, reports the National Cancer Institute.
  
  

Prognosis

• Only 25 to 50 percent of women who develop inflammatory breast disease survive five years after their diagnosis, reports the National Cancer Institute.