After the detection of a tumor, doctors must diagnose it to determine whether it is indeed cancerous and how far it has spread.

The best method of identification other than surgery is a biopsy, in which doctors actually remove a small piece of the tumor with a needle for analysis.

Scientists are working to fine-tune one method, known as fine needle aspiration biopsy, in which surgeons are guided to a tumor detectable only by mammogram.

Once a tumor has been identified as malignant and likely to spread, there are several routes of treatment available, according to Hayes.

Chemotherapy and radiation treatment are both widely used to attempt to destroy the tumor without surgery. Lumpectomy or mastectomy are alternative surgical methods to remove an advanced tumor.

Several drugs which seem to reduce recurrences are also being tested. Hayes cites taconite, an anti-estrogen drug, which has been demonstrated to reduce the likelihood of recurrent tumors, and taxol, a drug derived from Pacific yew trees which has been approved by the FDA for treatment of ovarian cancer and which may be a treatment for breast cancer.

All in all, substantial progress in both genetic and clinical breast cancer research and higher rates of survival have instilled confidence in researchers and also in patients whose lives are affected daily by the disease.

But experts in the field admit that medicine is far from having conquered breast cancer.

"It seems when you're in the field that there's very rapid progress," says Folkman. "There's a lot known, but you don't know if you know the right things...I don't think we know the key information yet."

Others are even less optimistic about progress to date. "We've just scratched the surface," says Norman L. Sadowsky, chief of radiology and director of the Faulkner-Sagoff Centre for breast health care. "In 25 years we'll look back and say 'they were really primitive in those days."