Comparison of Clinicopathological Characteristics and Outcome of Inflammatory and Non-inflammatory Locally Advanced Breast Cancer: A Study in Iran

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), a subgroup of locally advanced breast cancer (LABC), is diagnosed based on clinical findings, and seems to be different from other types of LABC. The purpose of this study was to compare clinicopathological characteristics and outcomes between inflammatory and non-inflammatory LABC patients at Breast Cancer Research Center (BCRC), Tehran, Iran. The medical records of all patients who were diagnosed as LABC in BCRC since 1997 to 2011 were extracted from the database. Then, clinical and pathological characteristics and overall survival of IBC patients were compared with non-inflammatory LABC (NI-LABC). A total number of 340 patients were identified as LABC from which 17 patients (5%) were diagnosed as IBC. Menopausal status, body mass index (BMI), family history of breast cancer, nodal status, and Her2/neu and PR positivity were not statistically different between IBC and NI-LABC groups. The difference in estrogen receptor (ER) between the two groups was significant (P = 0.028). Median duration of follow-up was 26.50 months. Patients with IBC had overall survival of 27.9 months (95% CI: 22.7–33.1) which was lower than patients in the NI-LABC group with a survival of 118.9 months (95% CI: 107.3–130.6) (P = 0.015). The difference between the disease-free survivals of the two groups were also statistically significant (P < 0.001). Compared to NI-LABC, IBC is more frequently ER negative and more commonly associated with lower survival rate. These findings reinforce the idea that IBC has a more aggressive biology and more unfavorable outcome than NI-LABC and needs close follow-up.