Patients with cancer can develop recurrent metastatic disease with latency periods that range from years even to decades. This pause can be explained by cancer dormancy, a stage in cancer progression in which residual disease is present but remains asymptomatic.

Cancer dormancy is poorly understood, resulting in major shortcomings in our understanding of the full complexity of the disease.

References

 Aguirre-Ghiso JA. Models, mechanisms and clinical evidence for cancer dormancy. Nat Rev Cancer. 2007 Nov;7(11):834-46. PMID: 17957189