2 years ago
UNDATED (KXTV) - A mammogram is not enough to catch a relatively rare but often deadly form of breast cancer.
The disease is Inflammatory Breast Cancer or IBC. A woman can have IBC but mammograms, designed to detect tumors, don't catch it. That's because the symptoms are very different.
"Just an odd thing in my left breast," remembers Carson Wiley when she learned she had IBC. "Kind of a swelling, an aching and it felt like it was kind of growing. This is 36. This is 38."
Wiley said a mammogram she had just a month before her IBC diagnosis showed her breasts were clear. But the other symptoms suggested something else was going on.
"A woman can have just one portion of the breast affected with the redness and the swelling," says U.C. Davis surgical oncologist Dr. Richard Bold. He says IBC often goes misdiagnosed because mammograms may only show some increased density in the breast but no mass.
However, there are other indications the abnormality may be IBC.
"A rapid change in breast size," Bold says. "One breast suddenly seems larger than the other. The nipple may invert -- go inward. Redness and dimpling. The breast looks like an orange peel. Thickening of the skin and it may be hot to the touch and a persistent itching." The breast may also look bruised.
Wiley's doctor was suspicious of her symptoms and ordered more tests. "I'm just so grateful, incredibly grateful that my doctor said you need a fine needle biopsy," she says. The treatment for IFB is typically some combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Wiley has been in remission since she was treated following her IBC diagnosis nine years ago.
About five percent of all breast cancers are IBC. The mortality rate of IBC is about 80 percent, in large part because it very often isn't diagnosed until it is in advanced stages. To learn more about this cancer and what to look for when performing monthly breast self-exams, click on the links above.
