A disease-modifying treatment, disease-modifying drug, or disease-modifying therapy is a treatment that delays, slows or reverses the progression of a disease by targeting its underlying cause. They are distinguished from

symptomatic treatment Symptomatic treatment, supportive care, supportive therapy, or palliative treatment is any medical therapy of a disease that only affects its symptoms, not the underlying cause. It is usually aimed at reducing the signs and symptoms for the com ...

s that treat the symptoms of a disease but do not address its underlying cause.

Examples

Disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug A disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug (DMOAD) is a disease-modifying drug that would inhibit or even reverse the progression of osteoarthritis. Since the main hallmark of osteoarthritis is cartilage loss, a typical DMOAD would prevent the loss o ...

Disease-modifying antirheumatic drug Disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) comprise a category of otherwise unrelated disease-modifying drugs defined by their use in rheumatoid arthritis to slow down disease progression. The term is often used in contrast to nonsteroida ...

References

Medical treatments Medical terminology {{treatment-stub