-Lao Zhang, how is your recovery
- The doctor said I was clinically cured!
- cured? Is there a cure for cancer? I’ve heard that some people relapse after ten or twenty years.
When doctors judge the effectiveness of cancer treatments, they use a term called “clinical cure.” A lot of cancer patient and family member, can have same question, “clinical cure” delegate is cancer already cured completely? Won’t relapse later? What is a cure?
If you are not familiar with the above questions, then read the following introduction, I believe you will know.
What is clinical cure after all?
Let’s start by looking at what clinical healing is. Clinical cure refers to the disease although not completely cured, but the symptoms can be controlled, will not continue to show the corresponding symptoms and signs, significantly improve the quality of life. For example, hypertension patients can not be completely cured, but the blood pressure can be controlled within the normal range is clinically cured.
For cancers, metastasis and recurrence peak about 3 years after surgery, and recurrence and recurrence rates decline after 3 years, and further decline after 5 years. So when we measure the effectiveness of treatment for many cancers, we hear the term “five-year survival,” which means that a patient who survives cancer treatment for more than five years is considered clinically cured.
Why do we use the term “five-year survival” to define a clinical cure for cancer? In fact, the five-year survival rate is for most cancers, because cancer is a complicated disease, it is difficult to make lifelong follow-up and statistics for all cancer patients, and the five-year survival rate is determined by a large number of studies and statistics.
Clinical cure ≠ complete cure
To be clear, a clinical cure is not a complete cure.
For example, the five-year survival rate for a given cancer is 90%. That is, 90% of people with that cancer will live at least five years after treatment, not just five years, but five years beyond the critical threshold. However, there is a probability that cancer will come back, even if the cancer has not come back after five years of treatment, it does not mean that it will never come back. The risk of cancer recurrence after five years is very low and is considered clinically cured, not completely cured, in medical terms.
So how can we tell if cancer treatment is clinically cured? Here are three criteria for clinical cure.
Three criteria for clinical cure
Standard one: five-year survival
Cancer is basically cured if a patient survives more than five years with no signs of cancer during those five years after regular treatment. The five-year survival rate varies from cancer to cancer, but it is not the only indicator of a cancer being clinically cured.
Standard 2: Symptoms of cancer
There are many types of cancer, but most of them have typical symptoms, such as fever, unexplained weight loss, and enlarged lymph nodes. If a cancer patient has reduced or disappeared symptoms of the cancer after treatment, it is also a standard to determine whether the cancer is cured or not.
Standard 3: Quality of life of the patient
The quality of life of cancer patients is an important indicator to measure the cure of cancer. Cancer treatment is to restore the quality of life of patients as far as possible. The higher the quality of life of patients after treatment, the greater the possibility of cancer being cured.
This is needed to reduce cancer recurrence
What can cancer patients do to survive longer and reduce the chance of recurrence and metastasis after systematic treatment?
First of all, we should change our bad living habits. Cancer may be brought under control for a while after treatment, but it can easily recur if patients let down their guard and don’t pay attention to lifestyle changes. Accordingly, cancer patient should notice the change of life habit after cure, do not stay up late, overwork, smoke drink to wait. Secondly, we should pay attention to our diet after cancer treatment. Many cancers are related to poor eating habits. After cancer treatment, patients should be careful not to overeat and eat a balanced diet.
The last point to emphasize is that we must go to the hospital regularly for follow-up visits. After treatment, cancer patients should regularly consult their doctors for follow-up visits according to the rules and symptoms of cancer spread, so that even if the cancer recurs, it can be detected early and treated in time. Regular follow-up visits are critical to improving cancer survival.
Although cancer is terrible, with the improvement of medical level, more and more patients have been clinically cured. Cancer patients should do a good job in life and diet management after treatment, reduce the probability of recurrence, and improve the survival time after treatment.
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