Expert: date=April 2008

A cure is a substance or procedure that makes a sick or diseased person well. A cure can be a medication, a surgical operation, a change in lifestyle, or even a philosophical mindset that helps a person heal.

Difference between preventions, treatments, and cures

A prevention or preventive measure is a way to avoid an injury, sickness, or disease in the first place, and generally it will not help someone who is already ill (though there are exceptions). For instance, many American babies are given a polio vaccination soon after they are born, which prevents them from contracting polio. But the vaccination does not work on patients who already have polio. A treatment or cure is applied after a medical problem has already started.

A treatment treats a problem, and may lead to its cure, but treatments more often ameliorate a problem only for as long as the treatment is continued. For example, there is no cure for AIDS, but treatments are available to slow down the harm done by HIV and delay the fatality of the disease. Treatments don't always work. For example, chemotherapy is a treatment for cancer which may cure the disease sometimes - it does not have a 100% cure rate. Therefore, chemotherapy isn't considered a bona fide cure for cancer.

Examples of Cures

There are a few examples of complete cures. In 1999, the CDC and the World Health Organization established a goal to cure 85% of tuberculosis patients in Russia. They reached an 80% success rate, with 75% of the diseased cured, and 5% that had successfully finished treatment.

See also

• Medication
• Medicine
• Orthomolecular
• Prevention
• Therapy

dfc

References

• What's the Difference Between a Treatment and a Cure?