Inflammatory breast cancer: results of antracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy

Twenty-three patients with inflammatory breast cancer treated with a combined modality approach including anthracycline-based induction chemotherapy-surgery-chemotherapy-radiotherapy were reviewed. Twelve patients (52.2%) received FAC (5-fluorouracil, adriamycin, cyclophosphamide) and 11 patients (47.8%) were treated with FEC (5-fluorouracil, epirubicin, cyclophosphamide) induction chemotherapy for three cycles every 3 weeks. Surgery was followed by the initial chemotherapy or second-line chemotherapy for an additional six cycles to complete nine cycles and radiotherapy, respectively. The median overall survival (OS) time was 27 months and the median disease-free survival (DFS) was 13 months. Furthermore, patients treated with FAC induction chemotherapy have been found to have longer median OS and DFS periods compared to patients with FEC induction chemotherapy in both univariate and multivariate analysis. In conclusion, the superiority of doxorubicin-containing chemotherapy over epirubicin-containing chemotherapy should be established in larger randomized studies and more effective chemotherapeutic agents such as taxans are required for better survival rates in inflammatory breast cancer patients.