We are always celebrating Breast Cancer Awareness in October by wearing our supportive pink ribbons and participating in events to discover a cure for this devastating disease. Some women aren’t aware of the various types of this cancer, including one called inflammatory breast cancer. This type is rare and more aggressive than the one we have learned about in the fall month.
Awareness of Inflammatory Breast Cancer
Women band together to celebrate survivors of this disease, but we are barely scraping the surface of this still unknown cancer affecting them. Inflammatory breast cancer is still not brought to the forefront of women’s attention and accounts for one percent of the total five percent of diagnoses.
What is inflammatory breast cancer?
So many women are familiar with the standard of this disease and the cancer care it comes with it, but little do they know it isn’t just one version. The inflammatory breast cancer cells block the lymph vessels and often give breasts the appearance of swelling and inflammation. They develop cells in the line of the milk ducts and spread beyond the area. Mammograms will usually not pick up traces of this type of breast cancer.