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Our highly trained specialists are available 24/7 via phone and on weekdays can assist through online chat. We connect patients, caregivers, and family members with essential services and resources at every step of their cancer journey. Ask us how you can get involved and support the fight against cancer. Some of the topics we can assist with include:
For medical questions, we encourage you to review our information with your doctor.
If you or a loved one is told that you have advanced cancer, it’s very important to find out exactly what the doctor means. Some may use the term to describe metastatic cancer, while others might use it in other situations. Be sure you understand what the doctor is talking about and what it means for you.
Advanced cancer is most often used to describe cancers that cannot be cured. This means cancers that won’t totally go away and stay away completely with treatment. However, some types of advanced cancer can be controlled over a long period of time and are thought of as an ongoing (or chronic) illness.
Even if advanced cancer can’t be cured, treatment can sometimes:
For some people, the cancer may already be advanced when they first learn they have the disease. For others, the cancer may not become advanced until years after it was first diagnosed.
Advanced cancers can be locally advanced or metastatic.
Locally advanced means that cancer has grown outside the body part it started in but has not yet spread to other parts of the body. For example, some cancers that start in the brain may be considered advanced because of their large size or closeness to important organs or blood vessels. This can make them life-threatening even though they haven’t spread to other parts of the body. But other locally advanced cancers, such as some prostate cancers, may be cured.
Metastatic cancers have spread from where they started to other parts of the body. Cancers that have spread are often thought of as advanced when they can’t be cured or controlled with treatment. Not all metastatic cancers are advanced cancers. Some cancers, such as testicular cancer, can spread to other parts of the body and still be very curable.
As advanced cancer grows, it can cause symptoms. These symptoms can almost always be managed with treatment, even when the cancer itself no longer responds to treatment.
Metastatic cancer is a cancer that has spread from the part of the body where it started (the primary site) to other parts of the body. Metastasis might be described based on how far from the primary site it has spread:
Metastatic cancer might also be described based on how large the new area of cancer is. When only a few cells have spread, it’s called a micrometastasis. These small areas are often too small to be seen on an imaging test. A larger area of cancer spread might be called a macrometastasis, but this term is used less often.
A metastatic cancer is cancer that has spread. A cancer recurrence is cancer that has returned after treatment. A second cancer is a different, unrelated cancer. The differences depend on when and where the cancer is found, and what type of cancer it is.
When cancer spreads to a new area, it’s still named after the part of the body where it started. For instance, breast cancer that has spread to the lungs is breast cancer in the lungs, not lung cancer. This is because the cancer is made up of breast cancer cells, even though they have spread (metastasized) outside of the breast. This distinction is important because treatment is based on where the cancer started and the type of cancer cells involved.
Sometimes the metastatic tumors have already begun to grow when the cancer is first found. And sometimes, a metastasis may be found before the original (primary) tumor is found. If a cancer has already spread to other parts of the body before it is first diagnosed, it may be hard to figure out where it started.
If cancer is found somewhere new, your cancer team will likely do a biopsy of the new area to find out if it is a metastasis or a second cancer. To learn more, see Understanding Recurrence and Second Cancers.
If you are diagnosed with cancer, your cancer care team will do additional tests to find out how advanced the cancer is and whether it has spread. This process is called staging.
As you go through treatment, your care team will watch you closely for signs to find out how treatment is working. If exams and tests show the cancer is growing or spreading, it might mean you need a different type of treatment.
For months or years after treatment, you will have follow-up visits with your cancer care team to check for signs the cancer has come back. You might get imaging scans, blood tests, or other tests to look for metastasis.
You might also notice symptoms if cancer has spread. General signs and symptoms of advanced and metastatic cancer can include:
Advanced and metastatic cancers can cause many other symptoms, depending on the type of cancer and where it has spread.
The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team
Our team is made up of doctors and oncology certified nurses with deep knowledge of cancer care as well as editors and translators with extensive experience in medical writing.
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National Cancer Institute. Coping with advanced cancer. Cancer.gov. Updated June 2020. Accessed August 14, 2020.
Last Revised: July 9, 2024
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