CLINICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL FACTORS AND THEIR CORRELATION WITH DISEASE-FREE AND OVERALL SURVIVAL OF PATIENTS WITH INFLAMMATORY BREAST CANCER
IBC is diagnosed on the basis of signs of rapid progression, such as localized or generalized breast induration, redness and edema. IBC accounts for less than 5% of all diagnosed breast cancers. IBC is the most lethal form of primary breast cancer. The current consensus treatment is first-line chemotherapy with an anthracycline-based regimen, possibly combined with a taxane, followed by mastectomy and axillary lymph node dissection for responders, locore-gional radiotherapy and, when appropriate, hormone therapy. We evaluated clinical and pathological characteristics that could affect survival in 299 women with IBC consecutively treated in our institution between 1990 and 2005. In univariate analysis most important prognostic factors of survival were stage and histological type of tumor.