Tests look for cancer cells in your blood. Scans like X-rays and MRIs show if your tumor is smaller or if it’s gone after surgery and isn’t growing back. To qualify as remission, your tumor either doesn’t grow back or stays the same size for a month after you finish treatments.

Your age when you get radiation treatment has a similar effect on the development of other solid tumors, including lung cancer, thyroid cancer, bone sarcoma, and gastrointestinal or related cancers (stomach, liver, colorectal, and pancreatic).

Cancer may sometimes come back after cancer drug treatment or radiotherapy. This can happen because the treatment didn’t destroy all the cancer cells. Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells by attacking cells that are in the process of doubling to form 2 new cells.

Doctors can’t predict if your specific cancer will recur. But they do know cancers are more likely to come back if they grow fast or are advanced. The treatment you originally had may also affect your chances of recurrence. Some types of cancer are more likely to come back than others.

Here are a few ideas to help you cope with the fear of recurrence:

1. Recognize your emotions.
2. Don’t ignore your fears.
3. Do not worry alone.
4. Reduce stress.
5. Be well informed.
6. Talk with your health care team about follow-up care.
7. Make healthy choices.

Cancer recurs because small areas of cancer cells can remain in the body after treatment. Over time, these cells may multiply and grow large enough to cause symptoms or for tests to find them. When and where a cancer recurs depends on the type of cancer. Some cancers have an expected pattern of recurrence.

A recurrence is the same type you had before, even if it develops in a different area of the body. Second cancers are not uncommon. About 1 in every 6 people diagnosed with cancer has had a different type of cancer in the past.

Unfortunately a person can be diagnosed with two different types of primary cancer. This might be at different times in their life, or more unusually at the same time. I appreciate it can be hard to come to terms with one diagnosis, so having news about two different diagnoses must be quite overwhelming.

Sometimes the new cancer is in the same organ or area of the body as the first cancer. For example, someone who was treated for a certain type of colorectal cancer can get another type of colorectal cancer as a second cancer. Or, a second cancer might develop in another organ or tissue.

Metastases are often more dangerous than the primary tumor that gives rise to them. They are responsible for 90% of all cancer deaths.

In a small number of situations, treatment can cure secondary cancer. However, usually secondary cancers are not curable and the aim of treatment is to control the cancer or manage any symptoms.

A patient with widespread metastasis or with metastasis to the lymph nodes has a life expectancy of less than six weeks. A patient with metastasis to the brain has a more variable life expectancy (one to 16 months) depending on the number and location of lesions and the specifics of treatment.

They have found a secondary cancer but have not been able to find the primary tumour. A secondary cancer happens when cancer cells separate from a primary site and spread to another part of the body. The cancer cells travel through the blood or lymphatic system and form a new cancer somewhere else in the body.

A second cancer can appear at any time during survivorship. Some studies show that a common time for cancers to develop is from five to nine years after completion of treatment. For childhood cancer survivors, secondary leukemia is most likely to occur less than ten years after treatment of the original cancer.

Carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) is a rare disease in which malignant (cancer) cells are found in the body but the place the cancer began is not known. Cancer can form in any tissue of the body. The primary cancer (the cancer that first formed) can spread to other parts of the body.

Benign tumors are noncancerous and do not spread to nearby tissues. Sometimes, they can grow large and cause problems when they press against neighboring organs and tissue. Malignant tumors are cancerous and can invade other parts of the body.

Patients diagnosed with stage 1A disease who elect no treatment live an average of two years. Those diagnosed in stage 4 who decide against treatment live an average of 6 months. Researchers use tumor grading to estimate how fast a tumor may grow.

When cancer has spread to lymph nodes, there’s a higher risk that the cancer might come back after surgery. This information helps the doctor decide whether more treatment, like chemo, immunotherapy, targeted therapy or radiation, might be needed after surgery.

How treatment works to stop cancer spread

1. Surgery. Depending on the type of cancer you have, surgery may be the first-line treatment.
2. Radiation therapy. Radiation uses high-energy rays to kill cancer cells or slow their growth.
3. Chemotherapy.
4. Targeted therapy.
5. Immunotherapy.
6. Stem cell or bone marrow transplant.

Because pancreatic cancer progresses rapidly, and no method of early detection has been discovered, it is one of the most dangerous types of cancer. The one-year survival rate is 25 percent, and the five-year survival rate sits at only 6 percent.

Vitamin D is one of the most studied supplements for cancer prevention and treatment right now. Vitamin A , vitamin C, vitamin E , and beta-carotene contain antioxidants once thought to help prevent cancer.

Unwashed fresh fruits and vegetables, especially leafy vegetables that can hide dirt and other contaminants. Unpasteurized fruit juice or cider. Raw sprouts like alfalfa sprouts. Raw or undercooked beef (especially ground beef) or other raw or undercooked meat and poultry.