The Inflammatory Breast Cancer Network UK is proud to announce the launch of the "Wear It Orange" campaign as part of this year's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While the month of October is traditionally associated with all things pink, we are inviting the public to stand out and wear orange on 4th October, in support of raising awareness for inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. We want to be the orange in the pink.

Why Orange?

Inflammatory breast cancer often presents with a distinctive symptom known as peau d'orange, where the skin appears dimpled and resembles the texture of an orange peel. By choosing to wear orange, we celebrate our difference and bring much-needed attention to this often overlooked condition.

IBC is very aggressive and currently can’t be detected earlier than Stage 3 (locally advanced), or Stage 4 (advanced / metastatic) and it has a significantly lower survival rate than other types of breast cancer. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 IBC in 2012 and it’s unusual for people with IBC to survive as long as I have.

IBC has different symptoms to other types of breast cancer – it doesn’t always present with a lump, and doesn’t always show up on mammograms, and is often misdiagnosed as mastitis or various benign skin conditions. IBC-specific research is important because IBC is so aggressive and has different characteristics to other types of breast cancer but it is difficult to get funding because the organisations who give out research grants consider it to be too rare for enough people to benefit.

So the IBC Network UK are directly funding research in the UK, but they rely entirely on donations to keep this important research going. Please give generously.