"The fear of a cancer diagnosis may drive patients to hide it from others, perhaps because they are more worried about the side effects of treatment and its impact on their lives," Massarweh said. "It's a shame that breast cancer, which is very otherwise treatable, ends up becoming incurable because of lack of awareness."

The kind of breast cancer that relapses early after therapy, within 2-3 years, reflects an aggressive resistant disease, despite appropriate therapy. In breast cancer with early relapse, Massarweh suggests that researchers should continue to test new therapeutic strategies to improve outcome.

"We clearly need to do more work and test novel therapy approaches to improve disease outcome, but also put major emphasis on increasing awareness about the importance of early detection and presentation when breast symptoms arise," Massarweh said. "In addition, it is very important that major cancer centers such as ours study their cancer populations more closely to identify characteristics of disease and guide the future of research and improving outcomes of patients."

Source: University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center