Spontaneous remission is a catch-all expression by the medical faculty for any healing with no obvious conventional explanation.

Traditional medical practice ascribes the effect to rationally explainable influences that simply lack observation. Advocates of faith healing and alternative medicine contend that under modern understanding the phenomenon should be easy to study and extremely rare, and that the expression is a convenient means for dismissing alternative sources of efficacy.

Examples

• In 1962, before he became famous, poker legend Doyle Brunson had malignant melanoma spread throughout his body, concentrated on his neck. The cancer spread near his brain and it was estimated that he had at most four months to live. His wife was pregnant, so Brunson elected to undergo radical neck surgery in order to live long enough to see his daughter. By the time the surgery was completed, there was, mysteriously, no longer any trace of cancer in his system. After some recovery time, Brunson went on to play the longest winning streak he ever experienced: 54 sessions in a row.