What Is The Difference Between IBC and Recurrent Breast Cancer?

What is inflammatory breast cancer?  The breast looks red and swollen and feels warm when inflammatory breast cancer occurs.  The redness and warmth occur because the cancer cells block the lymph vessels in the skin.  The skin of the breast may also show a pitted appearance. Inflammatory breast cancer may be stage IIIB, stage IIIC, or stage IV.  Treatment of inflammatory breast cancer may include the following:  Systemic chemotherapy.  Or systemic chemotherapy followed by surgery (breast-conserving surgery or total mastectomy), with lymph node dissection followed by radiation therapy.  Additional systemic therapy (chemotherapy, hormone therapy, or both) may be given.  Clinical trials testing new anticancer drugs, new drug combinations, and new ways of giving treatment may also be a treatment.
What is recurrent breast cancer?  Recurrent breast cancer is cancer that has recurred (come back) after it has been treated.  The cancer may come back in the breast, in the chest wall, or in other parts of the body.
Treatment of recurrent breast cancer in the breast or chest wall may include surgery (radical or modified radical mastectomy), radiation therapy, or both.  Systemic chemotherapy or hormone therapy may also be applied and a clinical trial of trastuzumab (Herceptin) combined with systemic chemotherapy may be used.