ASO Author Reflections: Not All pCRs are Created Equal, the Challenge of Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare and aggressive type of breast cancer, accounting for only 1–5% of all breast cancers diagnosed in the United States. In recent years, improvement in targeted systemic therapies has resulted in improved survival for breast cancer patients, however outcomes remain poor for IBC patients. The overall relative 5-year survival of IBC is reported as 40.5%,¹ significantly lower than the 5-year relative survival for all non-IBC stage III breast cancers, which is reported as 80.8%.² Pathologic complete response (pCR) has become an important surrogate marker for breast cancer outcomes in recent years. The prognostic significance of achieving pCR in the setting of IBC is not well described in the contemporary cohort. We evaluated overall survival (OS) between IBC patients and non-IBC stage III patients who achieved pCR. These patients were further stratified by receptor subtype.³ …