Treatment accelerates tumor growth

A woman returns from mammography where a miniscule tumor was detected. Irrespective of the therapy she gets sooner or later her tumor might recur. Treatment increases her risk for tumor recurrence.
Tumor recurrence has been demonstrated in many studies. “Recurrence” is a misnomer since treatment did not remove the entire tumor. Some tumor  residues remained there all the time.  It is more appropriate to say that tumor reappeared, or resurfaced.

Consider a woman whose tumor surfaced after five years All that time it was too small to be detected. It did not grow, yet unnoticed it created micro- metastases, which surfaced  after 5 years. What kept it dormant and what woke it up? Surgery to remove the primary tumor often terminates dormancy resulting in accelerated  relapses. Tumor  and metastases exist  in two states,  dormant, and growing, and surgery  triggers metastatic growth.
Cancer is more than just a tumor. It is an interaction between tumor and organism, which accelerates  tumor growth in response to therapy. It is a manifestation of cancer resistance to therapy.