How effective is mastectomy for inflammatory breast cancer?

Inflammatory breast cancer affects breast skin and lymph channels, so surgery is generally planned after treatment intended to shrink or control the cancer. The surgeon removes the breast and usually examines nearby lymph nodes. The operation addresses disease in the breast area; it does not by itself treat cancer cells elsewhere in the body.

Your team judges the likely benefit from scans, examination, biopsy findings, tumour features, lymph-node involvement, and how the cancer responds before surgery. Further treatment after surgery may be recommended to reduce the chance of cancer returning.

Ask the breast cancer team why surgery is being recommended now, what earlier treatment has achieved, and whether lymph-node surgery is planned. Discuss drain care, arm movement, wound checks, pain relief, and options for reconstruction or a prosthesis before the operation.

After discharge, follow the wound and drain instructions, keep scheduled reviews, and report increasing swelling, redness, fluid leakage, fever, or worsening pain. Gentle exercises are introduced at a suitable stage to help shoulder movement.

Contact your surgical team promptly for fever, spreading redness, a wound that opens, sudden swelling, heavy bleeding, breathlessness, chest pain, or an arm that becomes newly swollen or painful. Seek urgent help for severe breathlessness, chest pain, fainting, or uncontrolled bleeding.

Which treatments are planned before and after mastectomy? How will you assess my response before surgery? Will lymph nodes be removed? What changes should I expect in arm movement, sensation, and appearance? When can reconstruction or a prosthesis be discussed?