Is it ever appropriate to de-escalate regional nodal coverage in PMRT for patients with localized inflammatory breast cancer (IBC)?   

Historically, IBC is traditionally treated with trimodality therapy to include PMRT with comprehensive regional nodal irradiation (RNI). However, given increasing interests in treatment de-escalation of carefully selected patients throughout various disease sites, including IBC (Fayanju et al. 2020), are there any IBC patients for which you would consider omitting full/partial nodal coverage?

Do you comprehensively cover all nodal basins (i.e. dissected+undissected axilla, SCV, IMN) regardless? What factors, if any, would influence you to deviate from this paradigm? Hormone-receptor/Her2 status? Presence of residual primary tumor? Patient-related factors for high lymphedema risk (i.e. obesity, # LNs removed, wound issues, poorly controlled DM, etc)? 



Answer from: Radiation Oncologist at Academic Institution
Comments
Radiation Oncologist at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Would you cover the dissected axilla in 100% of th...
Radiation Oncologist at Cleveland Clinic
It's a great question as we do see cN0 IBC patient...
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