Objective: The study was aimed at investigating the clinical and biological features and survival outcomes of patients who were treated for metastatic inflammatory and noninflammatory breast carcinoma. Subjects and Methods: One hundred and sixty-seven metastatic breast cancer patients were enrolled into this study and divided into two groups: inflammatory (n = 46) and noninflammatory (n = 121). The clinical and hormone receptor status, c-erbB-2, Ki-67, and p53 expression, based on the immunohistochemical staining patterns, were compared between the two groups. Results: The inflammatory breast carcinoma group had a younger patient population, higher rate of adjuvant anthracycline therapy, number of lymph node metastases, rates of extranodal extension and c-erbB-2 overexpression than noninflammatory breast cancer patients (p < 0.05). With regard to survival, there were slightly better outcomes in the noninflammatory breast carcinoma group (30 months) compared to the inflammatory breast carcinoma group (23 months), but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.08). While survival results of p53-negative inflammatory and noninflammatory breast carcinoma patients were similar, p53-positive survival was significantly worse (p < 0.05) in inflammatory breast cancer carcinoma patients. Conclusion: Because of c-erbB-2 overexpression in inflammatory breast carcinoma patients, treatment options including trastuzumab could have given better survival outcomes. Survival of inflammatory breast carcinoma patients with a low p53 immunohistochemistry staining appeared similar to that for noninflammatory breast carcinoma. For this reason, new treatment options are needed especially in inflammatory breast carcinoma patients with high p53 positivity.

Keywords:
Breast cancer, inflammatory, noninflammatory, c-erbB-2, p53, Survival
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© 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel
2008
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