Role of Hormones
Age distribution and relation to breastfeeding duration is suggestive of some sort of involvement of hormones in the aetiology, however significant differences exist compared to normal breast cancer.
Typically IBC shows low levels of estrogen and progesterone receptor sensitivity corresponding with poor outcome. In cases with positive estrogen receptor status antihormonal treatment is believed to improve outcome.
Paradoxically some findings suggest that especially aggressive phenotypes of IBC are characterised by high level of NF kappaB target gene expression which can be - under laboratory conditions successfully modulated by estrogen but not tamoxifen.
Read more about this topic: Inflammatory Breast Cancer
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or hormones:
“A few [women] warrant our attention not because they have the answer but because they have rejected the mentality that insists there must be one answer. What makes them role models is not how much or how little they work, how many or how few hats they wear, but rather how well they understand, and accept, that for all rewards there will be commensurate sacrifice; for all gains, some loss; for any pleasure, some pain.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Teenage boys, goaded by their surging hormones ... run in packs like the primal horde. They have only a brief season of exhilarating liberty between control by their mothers and control by their wives.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)