NEWCASTLE, Okla. -- Treatment of a rare disease called inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is both complex and extensive. Eyewitness News 5's Tierney Cook examines what happens after being diagnosed.

IBC is a little-known form of the disease, one that is very aggressive, hard to detect and difficult to treat, doctors said.

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Newcastle resident Connie Craven agreed to talk with Eyewitness News 5's Tierney Cook about IBC. Craven has been fighting IBC for 18 months.

"I have been through chemo. I've had a bilateral mastectomy, and I have had radiation. At the end of that time, the cancer came back with a vengeance, and we did radiation and chemo at the same time," she said.

The treatment is aggressive, doctors said, because the disease is. Patients will require years of rigorous, monthly chemotherapy and eventually surgery and radiation.

Even with aggressive treatment, doctors said, the survival rate for IBC is about 50 percent after five years.

However, doctors in Houston are working to change that, part of a new inflammatory breast cancer research center at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. It's the only such center in the country.

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Officials said tissue and tumor samples are saved and studied in hopes that one day a cure could come from research.

Craven said education has given her a sense of control over the disease and fighting it.

"For me, information is a fundamental part of what I need to be a good survivor," she said.

To learn more about inflammatory breast cancer, visit the MD Anderson Cancer Center Web site.