Patients with leukemia are considered clinically “cured” if they have not relapsed after 5 years of stopping chemotherapy or have survived 10 years disease-free.
Some people with leukemia who have sustained a complete remission (CR) after treatment and are back to normal think they are cured, but this is not true. A complete remission is not the same as a clinical cure; a patient in sustained complete remission is considered clinically cured only if the leukemia continues to be relapse-free for more than 5 years after termination of chemotherapy.