Breast Cancer Cure

In general, the earlier the stage of diagnosis, the lower the risk of recurrence. However, with breast cancer or any cancer, we can never really say that a patient is truly “cured” – sometimes “NED” – no evidence of disease – is the best we can do. We do not yet have the ability to detect individual metastatic cells which may be slowly growing, only to show up on a scan years later. We are also learning more about breast cancer and while the stage at initial diagnosis is important, the biologic behavior, or aggressiveness of the cancer, may be even more important in terms of assessing an individual patient’s risk of recurrence.