The opposite of progressive disease is stable disease or static disease: a medical condition that exists, but does not get better or worse. Refractory disease
A refractory disease is a disease that resists treatment, especially an individual case that resists treatment more than is normal for the specific disease in question. Subclinical disease
Also called silent disease, silent stage, or asymptomatic disease. This is a stage in some diseases before the symptoms are first noted. Terminal phase
If a person will die soon from a disease, regardless of whether that disease typically causes death, then the stage between the earlier disease process and active dying is the terminal phase. Recovery
Recovery can refer to the repairing of physical processes (tissues, organs etc.) and the resumption of healthy functioning after damage causing processes have been cured. Extent
Localized disease
A localized disease is one that affects only one part of the body, such as athletes foot or an eye infection. Disseminated disease
A disseminated disease has spread to other parts; with cancer, this is usually called metastatic disease. Systemic disease
A systemic disease is a disease that affects the entire body, such as influenza or high blood pressure. Classification
Diseases may be classified by cause, pathogenesis (mechanism by which the disease is caused), or by symptom(s). Alternatively, diseases may be classified according to the organ system involved, though this is often complicated since many diseases affect more than one organ. A chief difficulty in nosology is that diseases often cannot be defined and classified clearly, especially when cause or pathogenesis are unknown.
Examples of the first-mentioned type are that Turner syndrome and DiGeorge syndrome are still often called by the "syndrome" name despite that they can also be viewed as disease entities and not solely as sets of signs and symptoms. Predisease
Predisease is a subclinical or prodromal vanguard of a disease. Prediabetes and prehypertension are common examples. The nosology or epistemology of predisease is contentious, though, because there is seldom a bright line differentiating a legitimate concern for subclinical/prodromal/premonitory status (on one hand) and conflict of interest–driven disease mongering or medicalization (on the other hand). Identifying legitimate predisease can result in useful preventive measures, such as motivating the person to get a healthy amount of physical exercise, but labeling a healthy person with an unfounded notion of predisease can result in overtreatment, such as taking drugs that only help people with severe disease or paying for drug prescription instances whose benefit–cost ratio is minuscule (placing it in the waste category of CMS "waste, fraud, and abuse" classification). Three requirements for the legitimacy of calling a condition a predisease are:
a truly high risk for progression to disease – for example, a pre-cancer will almost certainly turn into cancer over time
actionability for risk reduction – for example, removal of the precancerous tissue prevents it from turning into a potentially deadly cancer
benefit that outweighs the harm of any interventions taken – removing the precancerous tissue prevents cancer, and thus prevents a potential death from cancer.