For those patients who stand a chance of being cured, often aggressive therapy is required to place that person in remission.
Remission is defined as freedom from disease.
Primary treatment is used to place a cancer in remission while adjuvant or additional treatment is administered to maintain the disease-free state for patients at high risk of recurrence. This may in certain circumstances be risky. It may exist as a silent but detrimental force. Lesser dosages of treatment of chemotherapy or radiation or smaller surgical procedures are better tolerated in general. Because the treatment is better tolerated, patients might unknowingly mistake that for better treatment.