Cure is one of the most enduring and important concepts in medicine, but it’s also one of the most misunderstood. It sounds simple enough: being cured means that a disease or illness is gone and will not return. It’s more complex than that, though.
Patients and clinicians often differ about what it means to be cured, particularly in cases of chronic diseases that are not fully curable. In these cases, a cure may simply mean that patients reach a point of maximum medical improvement where further treatment would not improve their condition. For example, cancer patients who achieve remission or no evidence of disease may be considered cured even if they need to continue to have regular follow-up with their oncologist.
The term cure was derived from the Latin noun cura, which has several senses. The early Christian church used it primarily in reference to taking care of souls, and in the 16th century, it entered medical use for treating specific illnesses or injuries.
In addition, some patients suggest that a cure is desirable because it liberates them from their disease identity (e.g., patients with AIDS or sickle cell disease). However, others question whether a cure is valuable when it leaves them with the same tissue damage they had before completing their treatment (e.g., curing hepatitis C but leaving the patient with liver damage). Further research is needed to better understand the nuances of these different interpretations of cure.
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