Doctors said often men overlook the warning signs like pain and lumps in the breast, assuming that only women can get breast cancer. This was the case with Bill Morley, who told CNN that he waiting until his breast cancer was at stage 4 before getting tested.
He felt the pain and the lump in his breast but refused treatment not only because he wasn't sure what it could be but also because he did not have health insurance.
"It's almost embarrassing to look back on it," Morley said.
Although breast cancer is 100 times more likely in women than it is in men, the symptoms and treatment is often the same.
Men and women most often get diagnosed during a clinical exam after feeling a lump or feeling pain in the breast. Then an ultrasound or biopsy confirms the diagnosis.
Treatment is often chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, the same for men and women, typically.
Although these factors are the same doctors say men are often shamed to have a disease most often found in women.
Oncologist Mitchell Berger of Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia, told CNN, "It's like being the only man in a sorority house. The resources and posters that you see out in public have women on them. It makes it somewhat of a lonely journey."
Berger added than many men do not realize breast cancer is possible in men.
He said, "I think that a large part of it is they don't realize that they have breast tissue that can develop into breast cancer."
