who first discovered breast cancer

What Is Metastatic Breast Cancer?


The most frightening words imaginable for any woman are those when she is told that she has breast cancer. The morbid thoughts run through her head and the fear is overwhelming. Now she must endure medical treatments and examinations for several months as begins her battle against this disease.

Cancer is defined by four different stages and metastatic breast cancer is defined as stage 4 and it means that the cancer has spread beyond the breast and underarm lymph nodes to other part of the body. Another way to explain this is that the cancer cells have migrated and are now growing outside of the original tumor.

Women who have stage IV breast cancer usually receive chemotherapy and or hormonal therapy to destroy cancer cells and control the disease. They may have surgery or radiation therapy to control the cancer in the breast. Radiation may also be useful to control tumors in other parts of the body. The symptoms of metastatic breast cancer varies depend on where the cancer is and how large it is.