VEGFA and inflammatory breast carcinoma: If the natural history of IBC proceeds as it did in patients not treated with endocrine therapy (Figure 4D), then tamoxifen may have exerted a protective effect in patients with high stromal VEGF-A levels; these patients experienced no relapses from 22 to 40 months (see Additional file 4: Figure S3C), whereas patients who were not provided endocrine therapy experienced a steady rate of relapses during the same period.