Background: Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is the most aggressive form of primary breast cancer. We examined the relationship between clinicopathological factors and clinical response to primary systemic chemotherapy (PSC) and outcome.
Methods: Twenty-five patients with IBC were examined. Twelve patients received an anthracycline-based regimen, and 13 patients received an anthracycline-and a taxane-containing regimen as PSC. The expression of hormone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) was determined by immunohistochemistry.
Results: The overall clinical response rate was 64.0%. Clinical response to PSC was higher in patients with progesterone receptor (PgR)-positive (P = 0.01) and HER-2-negative (P = 0.03) tumors. Patients with fewer than ten involved axillary lymph nodes (P = 0.01 and P = 0.02, respectively) and with a clinical response to PSC (P = 0.02 and P = 0.01, respectively) showed better distant disease-free survival and overall survival.
Conclusion: In patients with IBC, PgR-positive and HER-2-negative tumors are more sensitive to anthracycline-based PSC. Patients with extensive residual tumor (ten or more lymph-nodes involved, no response to PSC) after PSC had unfavorable prognoses.