Cancer is a disease of the cells. Cells normally grow in an orderly fashion.  But when they grow uncontrollably, they can form a growth or tumor - a mass of abnormal or cancerous cells. 

A cancerous growth of cells may be limited to one place.  Or the cancer can spread, invading and destroying the cells of other organs and body parts. This is called "metastatic cancer."  "Metastasize" means to spread; cancer that has "metastasized" has spread to other parts of the body.  For example, if breast cancer cells invade the liver, the disease in the liver is not called "liver cancer," but "metastasized breast cancer."  The more aggressive the cancer, the further and faster it spreads. 
 
"Cancer recurrence" means a cancer has returned after it had seemingly disappeared for some time. It is not a new cancer; it is the same cancer the person originally had.  It can return to its original location or, if it is metastatic, to another location in the body.

Recurrence and metastasis are not the same thing. If you've had a local recurrence, when the cancer remains confined to your breast, your prognosis is not necessarily any worse than it was the first time.

If breast cancer does recur or a new primary cancer is found, oncologists may be able to approach treatment with the assumption that it's a curable situation.   However, in many circumstances oncologists may have to approach treatment as they would a chronic disease; that is, a disease that is not curable but controllable.  In either situation, breast cancer recurrence can be successfully treated or managed. 

You can find more information about breast cancer at these earlier episodes of Second Opinion: Second Opinion, Breast Cancer, Episode 107 and Second Opinion, Life After Breast Cancer, Episode 309.

Learn more about Breast Cancer Recurrence:

Key Point 1: Even years after the initial treatment, breast cancer can reappear either locally or in other regions of the body.