Invasive Lobular Carcinoma
What is ILC?
15% of women with breast cancer have invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC). A typical feature of ILC is that it grows in rows of single cells because the cancer cells do not stick to each other as most other breast cancers. Fortunately, most patients with ILC respond well to anti-hormone (endocrine) treatment. The special features of ILC and how it distinguishes itself from non-ILC breast cancer are summarized on this page.
Treatment in the early setting
In the early setting, ILC is only present in the breast and possibly the nearby lymph nodes. There are no signs of metastases in other organs. Breast cancer can be treated locally using surgery and radiotherapy, and systemically with for example chemotherapy and anti-hormone (endocrine) therapy. Local treatment aims to remove the cancer from a specific area, in this case the breast and the nearby lymph nodes. Systemic treatment will distribute itself throughout the entire body to attack cancer cells that may have spread in the body. This treatment aims to reduce the risk of the cancer recurring in other organs.
“Systemic treatment will distribute itself throughout the entire body to attack cancer cells that may have spread in the body.”
Local Treatment
Surgery: when there are multiple tumours in your breast, there is a greater chance that your entire breast needs to be removed (= mastectomy), which is more commonly performed for patients with ILC.
Radiotherapy: it depends on the type of surgery you had and whether tumour cells are present in local lymph nodes if you need local radiation treatment.
Systemic Treatment
Endocrine treatment: the chance that you need anti-hormone treatment is very high, since most ILC tumours are sensitive to hormones. Aromatase inhibitors are the preferred endocrine treatment option for ILC.
Chemotherapy: although ILC has a tendency to not respond well to chemotherapy, this treatment option needs to be decided together with your doctor.
Anti-HER2 treatment: this targeted therapy will be proposed to you if your tumour overexpresses a marker called HER2. In ILC, this is a minority group.
Bisphosphonates: this class of drugs (commonly used to treat osteoporosis) can possibly be added to your treatment if you are menopausal.
Treatment plans can differ. Sometimes systemic treatment is given before the surgery to try to shrink the tumour, this is called neo-adjuvant treatment. When the systemic treatment is given after surgery to prevent metastasis, it is called adjuvant treatment. Ongoing clinical trials can also provide additional treatment opportunities before and after surgery.
Download Area
Here you can find the leaflet and booklet versions of the ILC information. Click on the flag corresponding to your language to download a zip file containing both versions as PDF.
When you (or a family member) get diagnosed with breast cancer, you might be overwhelmed by all the medical information. You have been diagnosed with invasive lobular breast cancer (ILC), a special type of breast cancer. ILC can behave and present itself in different ways to what you may have heard and may think about breast cancer. With this leaflet, we provide you with an overview of the basic information regarding ILC. Hopefully, it can answer some of your questions. We encourage you to further discuss your disease and treatment options with your medical team.
If your language is not covered below, please check the Lobular Breast Cancer Alliance (LBCA) Fact Sheet website: https://lobularbreastcancer.org/ilc-fact-sheet/ or their Lobular information leaflet: https://lobularbreastcancer.org/lbca-brochure-2/
The ELBCC closely collaborates with the LBCA. All the information we share is fact checked and peer reviewed by researchers, clinicians and patients.
Bulgarian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Icelandic
Italian
Lithuanian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Ukranian
Flag icons from https://www.freeflagicons.com/