Very often when a cancer is treated the treatment will take away all evidence of that cancer: symptoms will disappear, physical examination and special tests (like blood tests and scans) will all go back to normal. All the appearances will suggest that the problem has been cured.

Very often there will be a cure but sometimes there will be microscopic clumps of breast cancer cells left behind. Because they are so tiny these traces will not cause any symptoms and they will be too small to show up on even the most careful of examinations and most sensitive of special tests. These tiny clusters of breast cancer cells may lie dormant for months or years but may eventually grow and so the cancer may come back.

Since these minute cells that might have been left behind cannot be detected in any way then it is impossible to give an absolute guarantee that a breast cancer has been cured after treatment.

Having said this, very many women are cured of their breast cancer by modern day treatment. The chances of getting a cure depend on how advanced the cancer was (how large it was and how far it had spread) at the time it was first discovered (this is sometimes known as the 'stage' of the cancer) and how well that cancer responds to treatment.

There are now of statistics which doctors can use as a guide to predicting the chances of a cure for any breast cancer at any particular stage of the disease. These figures are only 'statistics' which means they cannot absolutely predict what will happen to individual women but they do give a very good idea of the 'chances' of whether, or not, a cure is likely. So doctors rely on these figures for deciding what the probable outcome is for each of their patients at the end of their treatment.

These days many women are cured of their breast cancers. So if your doctors have given you the 'all clear'they obviously think your chances of success are very good.