Patient Education Resource Guide

Living Beyond Cancer is MSK's umbrella term for the range of services and support offered to patients after their treatment ends.

To learn about MSK's program for survivors diagnosed as adults and what to expect as you move into survivorship, look to this resource from Patient & Community Education: Adult Survivorship at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

As a cancer survivor, you may want to explore telling your story.

The Visible Ink writing program is free and open to all MSK patients (in treatment, post-treatment, and long-term survivors) and offers them the opportunity to express themselves in writing with one-on-one support from an experienced mentor.

As you near the end of cancer treatment, your health care team may describe your disease in several ways. Here is how to better understand what these terms mean, as survivorship is not the same as a cure.

• Partial Remission (PR)
  • Partial remission means that the signs and symptoms of your cancer or disease are reduced.
• Complete Remission (CR)
  • Complete remission means that all signs and symptoms of your cancer or disease are gone.
• No Evidence of Disease (NED)
  • No evidence of disease means that there are no traces of disease in your body. If you are in complete remission for five years, many doctors will say you are "cured," or have no evidence of disease, since most cancers that come back do so within five years. However, there is always a small chance that your cancer could come back, even after being cleared as NED.
• Long-Term and Late-Treatment Effects
  • These terms refer to the persistent post-treatment side effects that you may experience. Some of these can be new side effects that develop months or years after treatment is complete.
• Recurrence or Relapse
  • These terms mean that your cancer has been detected again after completing treatment.

The American Cancer Society offers the page Survivorship: During and After Treatment. Two pages that may be helpful are:

• What is Cancer Rehab?: Rehab or rehabilitation is known as care that helps you keep or improve the movement and other abilities you need for daily life. This page explores how this type of care can help you with the physical and mental issues you may experience from your cancer or its treatment.
• Managing Cancer as a Chronic Illness: Sometimes cancer is a chronic illness, meaning it never completely goes away, and it's something that is lived with and managed. This page describes what this means for you.