Novel targeted therapies in inflammatory breast cancer.

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) accounts for 1% to 5% of all breast cancer cases. Its aggressive biology is characterized by rapid disease progression and poor prognosis. To improve and standardize therapy for IBC, development of novel therapeutics to molecular targets of IBC is key. Trastuzumab treatment, an anti-HER2 humanized monoclonal antibody, has been demonstrated to improve the 3-year survival rate of patients with IBC (70.1% vs 53.3%; P = .0007). Another chemotherapeutic drug, lapatinib, a dual tyrosine inhibitor of epidermal growth factor (EGFR) and HER2 signaling, in combination with capecitabine demonstrated encouraging results, with a 51% decrease in disease progression. Further investigation is needed to confirm the efficacy of lapatinib. Copyright 2010 American Cancer Society.