Researchers and doctors have tried for many years to find the perfect cure for breast cancer, but with each passing year, new symptoms and new problems seem to arise. It appears that breast cancer is more common in women, but there have been some cases where the cancer has affected men. There have been years of research spent trying to find the definitive answer to all the damage caused by cancer and, beyond that, there have been several organizations that have collected data and research in the hope of one day finally being able to cure this horrendous disease. One of the major organizations that help calculate data in breast cancer research and contribute to a proven cure is the (SEER) or Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute (Yancik, et al., 1989) . This organization mainly deals with the treatment of people of advanced age because as a patient gets older it is more difficult to detect diseases that may occur while the patient has already been diagnosed with another disease. SEER primarily helps track disease stage, surgery, histological type, and survival time (Yancik, et al., 1989). This is to help women who get cancer at an early stage and to prevent any additional damage that may occur due to the disease. It is well known that as you get older you tend to have more health problems and to keep your body in good shape you need to have tests done to make sure everything in your body is working properly. The majority of patients diagnosed with breast cancer are 65 years of age or older and this is evidence that older adults are more likely to get breast cancer than younger people in the United States (Yancik, et al., 1989). Women in their seventies tended to… middle of paper… risk of cancer recurrence by 50%, as well as reducing cancer death by 20% (Darby, et al., 2011). There are two different types of radiotherapy. External radiation uses devices outside the body to deliver radiation to the infected area and is typically performed daily for 5-6 weeks (Whelen, et al., 2010). Internal radiation uses radioactive substances found in needles, wires and/or catheters which are then placed near the cancerous area. It seems that internal radiation is more efficient because the substances are placed right next to where the cancer is located, but external radiation seems to be less complicated because everything is done outside the body rather than inside. The average internal radiation appears to take much less time because the average treatment is given for only 5 days (Shaitelman, et al.., 2010).