peau d’orange

[Stephen Bird]

Is the peau d’orange appearance a suspicious clinical feature? do you have to see a mass to call it inflammatory breast cancer?

[Stephen Bird]

The appearance of peau d’orange is not specific for inflammatory breast cancer as other causes of lymphoedema in the breast may also result in the same clinical finding. It is however suspicious for inflammatory breast cancer and this possibility requires careful investigation. I really hate scanning inflammatory breast cancers, not only as they are devastating cancers for the lady who is unlucky enough to have it, but also they are very difficult from an ultrasound imaging perspective. Often the diagnosis is made by my radiologist on the mammo, but when I scan the breast I see some oedema and distorted architecture but no discrete mass to biopsy etc. Personally I find them very difficult sonographically.

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