Breast cancer; it’s a serious affliction that most women know about, but men have a higher rate of fatality, simply because most of them don’t think they’ll ever be diagnosed with it.

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Men are encouraged to consult their doctors if they notice any abnormal swelling in certain areas.

Marshall Anderson, a cowboy living in west Texas, used to split his time working between his ranch and at the Texas Cancer Center. Not as a patient, but to help those in therapy. However, that was put on hold when he ignored a small change on his body.

“I first realized I had a problem when I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had a place in my chest that appeared to be an infected bug bite and then it grew, continued to grow until it was about the size of a base ball,” Anderson said.

Like most men, Marshall had no idea that men can get breast cancer. And now he wants to make sure that no other men go through what he did.

“I was shocked. I was outraged. I was just plain old mad,” Marshall said when the doctors told him he had breast cancer. “I mean, I'm a guy. I never thought that I would have breast cancer.”

Dr. Anton Melnyk, an oncologist at the Texas Cancer Center, said that men were more likely to die from breast cancer than testicular cancer this year.

In fact, the American Cancer Society reported more than 1,700 men would be diagnosed with breast cancer but 27% of men would die compared to 19% of women. It's because of a late diagnosis.

“The thing we don't want to have happen is have a man go to his doctor and say, ‘Gosh, I didn't know I could get breast cancer and this lump on my chest has been growing for the last three months and gosh I wish I had gotten this checked out sooner,’” Melnyk said.

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Marshall Anderson.

Melnyk said men were more at risk as they got older and if their female relatives have had it. Treatment is out there for men, so any symptom that stays and gets worse needs to be checked.

“Male breast cancer is treated exactly like female breast cancer,” Melnyk said. “Obviously we want to know specifics about the type of cancer that you have because, our treatment is going away from the shotgun approach to more of a targeted therapy with silver bullets. So we live in the golden ages of biomedical research and we have some wonderful drugs coming along.”

These days, Anderson’s goal is to get the word out to men that they can be diagnosed with breast cancer.

“Guys, this is for real that men can, and men do, get breast cancer,” Anderson said. “And if you find something abnormal, you find a lump under your arm or on your chest, be man enough to get it checked out.”