OBJECTIVES: To assess the demographic, clinical characteristics, and treatments received data of inflammatory breast cancer in a cohort of Mexican women from a public health institution.

METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated medical charts of IBC patients who attended the Breast Cancer Foundation (FUCAM) in the period between 2011 to 2015, including demographic, clinical characteristics, and treatments received. Descriptive statistics were used, showing mean and standard deviation (SD) for continuous variables; number of patients(n) and percentage (%) for categorical variables.

RESULTS: During the period between 2011 and 2015, there were 4,525 medical records of any breast cancer diagnosis, from which 203 medical records fulfilled all the selection criteria (complete study variables and IBC diagnosis) All patients were female, Hispanic and users of Seguro Popular health care, with a mean age of 48.7 years old (SD: 11.3 years); 16.3% had a family history of breast cancer; 54.2% ; 10.8% were current smokers and 7.4% past smokers; and 17.7% had type 2 diabetes mellitus. Tumors were equally distributed in between breasts (47.8% right, 49.3% left) and in 2.5% of the cases were bilateral. Most cases were stage IIIA (60.1%) and IIIC (26.6%) at diagnosis. Most tumors (95.6%) were invasive canalicular or ductal carcinoma; 57.1% were well differentiated and 39.8% were moderately differentiated histologic grade. All patients received chemotherapy, mostly based on 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide. Of all,

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first description of IBC in the Mexican population. Characteristics of our IBC patients show similarities with those reported in the literature, including young age at diagnosis and higher tumor features, including a high percentage of triple negative tumors. This information will contribute to our knowledge of the real burden of this disease in Mexico and help to guide public health policies and treatment guidelines.