[cannonedhamster]

Some chemotherapy drugs list cancer as a possible side effect, which I thought was funny when they told me. Recurrence is different as it's generally hiding cancer "stem cells" that cause this. There's actually a drug in the works that attempts to activate these and make them more susceptible to standard chemo that I think is cool, but it's a few years before that reaches human trials.

As for lasting results, most aren't cures, it's about improving the overall survivability, meaning time until the next treatment option opens up. A lot of these options give you a few months at most which is a big improvement and gives you a chance until the next thing comes out. The reason for this is that we're commonly talking about late stage cancers (3/4). Early stage cancers that haven't spread are cut out before they spread which is the best possible option as it's the highest likelihood of a cure.