Getting a RECIST rating of progressive disease does not mean your cancer is fatal. It doesn’t even mean that your treatment has failed.  The definition of progressive disease is that the tumor monitored in the RECIST scans has either grown by 20% or more or has spread to new areas. Sometimes cancers may exhibit pseudoprogression—show up bigger on scans, then shrink. Other times, other endpoints to your treatment may be more important than progression.