WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Rep. John Spratt (D-SC) joined his colleagues this week in passing H. Res. 787, to establish October 13, 2009, as National Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, and an estimated 192,370 women and 1,910 men will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in the U.S. this year alone. Metastatic, or Stage IV breast cancer, which currently afflicts about 155,000 women and men in the U.S., means that cancer cells have traveled from the breast to other areas in the body, such as the liver, lungs, bones, or brain, and are now growing there. There is no cure for breast cancer once it has metastasized, and most of today’s current medical treatments are focused only on extending the best quality of life for the patient.
“The goal is to raise awareness, expand research, and focus on treatments that will make metastatic cancer a chronic but not fatal disease,” Spratt said.
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