Selected inflammatory breast cancer research published in 2013
What is an abstract?
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper’s purpose. The abstract can convey the main results and conclusions of a scientific article but the full text article must be consulted for details of the methodology, the full experimental results, and a critical discussion of the interpretations and conclusions.
The abstract below is not edited. The abstract is also on PubMed. Free full text is not available.
Yeh, E. D., et al. (2013). What radiologists need to know about diagnosis and treatment of inflammatory breast cancer: a multidisciplinary approach. Radiographics, 33(7), 2003-17. doi: 10.1148/rg.337135503.
Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare breast cancer with a highly virulent course and low 5-year survival rate. Trimodality treatment that includes preoperative chemotherapy, mastectomy, and radiation therapy is the therapeutic mainstay and has been shown to improve prognosis. Proper diagnosis and staging of IBC is critical to treatment planning and requires a multidisciplinary approach that includes imaging. Patients with IBC typically present with rapid onset of breast erythema, edema, and peau d’orange. Both tissue diagnosis of malignancy and clinical findings of inflammatory disease are required to confirm diagnosis of IBC. Imaging is used to identify a biopsy target; direct biopsy; stage IBC; differentiate curable from incurable (stage IV) disease; and help plan chemotherapy, surgical management, and radiation therapy. Comparison of baseline and posttreatment images helps confirm and quantitate disease response. When imaging is used early in the course of therapy to noninvasively predict treatment response, optimal tailored strategies for management of IBC can be implemented. Imaging is vital to diagnosis and treatment planning for patients with IBC, and radiologists are an integral part of the multidisciplinary patient care team.