The short answer
Remission means the signs and symptoms of cancer have decreased or disappeared. It can be partial or complete. Cure means the cancer is gone and will not come back. Because that is hard to be certain of, doctors often speak of remission rather than cure.
Remission means the signs and symptoms of cancer have decreased or gone away.
Remission can be partial (signs and symptoms reduced) or complete (all signs and symptoms gone).
Complete remission is not the same as cure — some cancer cells can remain in the body for many years after treatment.
Cure means the cancer is gone and will not come back, which can only be judged with time.
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50 sec · Captioned · Remission and cure mean different things — and time is what separates them.
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This page is for people who have heard the word remission and want to know how it differs from a cure. It explains both terms and what follow-up looks like after remission.
The short version
These two words sound similar but mean different things, and the difference matters. Remission means the signs and symptoms of cancer have decreased or disappeared. Cure means the cancer is gone and will not come back. Because it is hard to be certain a cancer will never return, doctors often speak of remission — even long-lasting remission — rather than cure.
What remission means
Remission is good news, and it comes in two forms:
- Partial remission — the signs and symptoms of cancer are reduced, but not all have gone away.
- Complete remission — all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared.
Complete remission is sometimes described as "no evidence of disease," or NED, though NCI's prognosis page does not use that term. It is a hopeful result, but it is not the same as cure.
Why complete remission is not the same as cure
Even when all signs of cancer have disappeared, NCI says some cancer cells can remain in your body for many years after treatment. Recurrent cancer starts with cells the first treatment did not fully remove or destroy, which may be too small to show up in follow-up tests. If those cells grow over time, the cancer can come back. That is called a recurrence. For this reason, doctors watch over time before using the word "cure," and follow-up visits continue after remission begins.
What cure means
Cure means there are no traces of your cancer after treatment and the cancer will never come back. After 5 or more years of complete remission, some doctors may say you are cured, but they cannot guarantee it, because some cancer cells can remain in your body for many years after treatment.
Living after remission
For cancers that return, most do so within the first 5 years after treatment, but cancer can come back later. Follow-up care continues so any change can be caught early. Questions to ask your care team:
- Am I in partial or complete remission?
- What does my follow-up plan look like, and how often will I have check-ups?
- Which symptoms should prompt a call to my care team right away?
Your team can explain what these words mean for your specific situation.
Sources
Common questions
What does remission mean?
Remission means the signs and symptoms of cancer have decreased or disappeared. In partial remission, the signs and symptoms are reduced but not all have gone away. In complete remission, all signs and symptoms have disappeared. Remission is not the same as cure.
Is complete remission the same as being cured?
Not necessarily. In complete remission all signs and symptoms have disappeared, but NCI says some cancer cells can remain in the body for many years after treatment. That is why doctors watch over time before using the word 'cure,' and why follow-up visits continue after remission.
Why do doctors avoid the word 'cure'?
Cure means there are no traces of your cancer after treatment and the cancer will never come back. Some cancer cells can remain in the body for many years after treatment, so doctors usually say there are no signs of cancer at this time. After 5 or more years of complete remission, some doctors may say you are cured.
Does remission mean the cancer will come back?
Not necessarily. For cancers that return, most do so within the first 5 years after treatment, but there is a chance cancer will come back later. Follow-up care continues so any change can be caught early. Your care team explains what to expect for your situation.
Questions to ask your doctor
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Last updated: 2026-10-16Next planned review: 2027-07-14
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Cancer Explained does not originate medical claims. Every page restates guidance already published by the National Cancer Institute, the CDC, the USPSTF and the FDA, in plain language, with the source cited so you can check the original yourself. AI does the translating and organizing; automated checks test claims, citations, clarity and safety before anything publishes, and this is translation and navigation, not clinical judgment. Nothing here is personal medical advice, and no page can account for your particular situation.
Editorial status: Source checked — This page was written with AI assistance and then compared with the sources listed on it, looking for statements those sources do not back up. That check is not a sentence-by-sentence record and can miss errors. It is not a medical review, and it does not confirm the page is complete or right for your situation.
Human medical review: not completed. Pages here are not signed off by a clinician before they publish. That is not an oversight we are quietly working around: we restate published guidance and cite it, so the authority belongs to the source rather than to us, and every page names where its claims come from — you can verify us instead of trusting us. Where a volunteer clinician has reviewed a page, their name and credentials appear on it; where no name appears, no clinician has checked it. We are glad to have reviewers and are recruiting them, and we do not hold pages back waiting for one. Use this site to understand your situation and to ask better questions of the people treating you.
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