Overcoming radiation resistance in inflammatory breast cancer

The clinical-pathological features of inflammatory breast cancer include enrichment of factors that have been previously associated with radioresistant disease, including negative hormone receptor status and a phenotype enriched for relatively radioresistant breast cancer stem/progenitor cells. The risks and benefits of accelerated postmastectomy radiation treatment regimens in the multimodality management of inflammatory breast cancer were reviewed at the first International Inflammatory Breast Cancer Conference at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The biological basis for radiation resistance and strategies to radiosensitize these tumors were also presented. The prevalent basal phenotype of inflammatory breast cancer makes it an ideal clinical model to examine stem cell hypotheses, which the authors believe can help guide future trials to continue making incremental progress against this aggressive disease.