A local recurrence is a tumor recurring in the breast, a regional recurrence in the axillary lymph nodes, and distant recurrence a distant metastasis like to liver, lung, brain etc. Recurrence free survival thus is about the time a patient is free of a recurrence. Relapse free survival is often -maybe always- used to describe the time a patient with advanced disease, i.e. distant metastasis, reacts to treatment. So, if a patient with advanced disease gets tamoxifen for instance, relapse free survival is the time between start of this treatment and when the tumor/metastasis starts growing again.