Understanding treatment
Understanding scans
How do doctors know if cancer treatment is working?
How symptoms, examinations, blood tests and scans are combined to assess whether a cancer treatment is helping.
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Cancer scans and treatment response
Understand how cancer treatment is assessed, what scan results can mean, why scans happen at particular intervals and what follow-up may involve.
Scans are important, but they are not the only information used to judge whether treatment is helping. Symptoms, examination and blood tests may also contribute, depending on the cancer and treatment.
This section brings together clear explanations of treatment response, scan terminology, follow-up and the experience of waiting for results.
Start hereHow doctors assess whether cancer treatment is working
Questions and explanations
Understanding scans
Understanding treatment
Complete response, partial response, stable disease and progressive disease explained
What common cancer response terms mean, how RECIST measurements are used, and why a scan category does not make a treatment decision by itself.
Understanding scans
Understanding treatment
What does stable disease mean in cancer?
What doctors mean by stable disease on a cancer scan, and why stable can still be a meaningful treatment result.
No evidence of disease, remission and ‘cancer-free’: what do they mean?
Why no evidence of disease, remission, complete response and cancer-free are related terms but do not all provide the same certainty about cure.
Understanding scans
Understanding treatment
Why are cancer scans not done more often?
Why cancer scans are scheduled at particular intervals, and how doctors balance useful information against the limits of scanning.
Follow-up after cancer treatment: why appointments and scans vary
Why cancer follow-up differs by cancer type and treatment, when surveillance scans are useful, and why more frequent imaging is not automatically better.
What does cancer recurrence mean?
What doctors mean when cancer recurs, the difference between local, regional and distant recurrence, and why recurrence is not the same as a new primary cancer.
Scanxiety: coping with worry before a cancer scan
Why anxiety around cancer scans is common, what may help while waiting, and when to ask your clinical team for support.
Living between cancer scans: making room for everyday life
Practical ways to live with uncertainty between cancer scans without allowing every day to become a countdown to the next result.
These articles provide general information. Your clinical team can explain what applies to your own situation.