Why do people with breast cancer need chemotherapy? The reason is that despite the best efforts of the healthcare team to remove all traces of the tumor, breast cancer can still recur. Even early stage breast cancer can return months to years after the original diagnosis and treatment.
It can come back as a local recurrence (in the treated breast) or as a distant recurrence, also known as metastatic disease, elsewhere in the body, such as the bones, lungs, liver, or other organs. Due to this concern, many oncologists prefer to err on the side of over treating their patients with chemotherapy, lest the person be under treated and sustain a recurrence.
