Why and Where Cancer Returns

"I was floored. I thought all the cancer was gone. I was just getting back to a normal life. I was even more surprised that it came back in a different place. But I didn't care where it was. I just wanted it to go away." - Ronald 

 

When cancer comes back, doctors call it a recurrence (or recurrent cancer). Some things you should know are:

• A recurrent cancer starts with cancer cells that the first treatment didn't fully remove or destroy. Some may have been too small to be seen in follow-up. This doesn't mean that the treatment you received was wrong. And it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong, either. It just means that a small number of cancer cells survived the treatment. These cells grew over time into tumors or cancer that your doctor can now detect.
• When cancer comes back, it doesn't always show up in the same part of the body. For example, if you had colon cancer, it may come back in your liver. But the cancer is still called colon cancer. When the original cancer spreads to a new place, it is called a metastasis (meh-TAS-tuh-sis).
• It is possible to develop a completely new cancer that has nothing to do with your original cancer. But this doesn't happen very often. Recurrences are more common.