Although widely believed to be a disease that exclusively affects women, about 1 percent of breast cancer patients are men. Some 1,600 new cases are diagnosed in United States each year, and about 400 men will die of the disease.
Survivors say the widespread ignorance about the disease is sometimes tough to handle.
But not everybody's experience has been that way. Doctors often don't accept that a man, especially a young one, can have breast cancer. When male breast cancer survivors tell their stories, it's remarkable to hear them discuss terms mammograms, lumpectomy, tamoxifen, reconstructive surgery that have become associated so completely with women. Breast cancer accounts for some 26 percent of malignancies in women, but only 0.2 percent of malignancies in men. Recovering patients say the exceeding rarity of male breast cancer, combined with shame and a reluctance to talk by many who suffer from it, contributes to a deadly silence about the disease.