Curabile

Curabile is an Italian adjective meaning capable of being cured or treated successfully. In medical usage, it describes diseases, conditions, or injuries for which a cure or effective treatment is possible, as opposed to incurabile, meaning incurable. The term can modify a noun as in una malattia curabile (a curable disease) or prognosis statements such as la malattia è curabile when diagnosed early.

The word derives from Latin curabilis, from curare “to care for or cure” with the suffix -abilis indicating capability. In Italian, curabile has been in common use since the Renaissance and remains standard in medical and everyday language.

Usage notes: While curabile indicates the possibility of cure, it does not guarantee a successful outcome in every case. Some conditions described as curabili may require long-term treatment, surgery, or ongoing management, and access to care affects outcomes. The term is increasingly used in patient information to convey optimism without promising certainty, and in clinical guidelines to distinguish treatable conditions from those that are not.

See also: incurabile, guarire, trattabile. Examples: a curable infection with antibiotics, a curable form of cancer detected early. Curabile can also appear in headlines and advocacy materials discussing healthcare priorities, though it is mainly a clinical descriptor rather than a policy term.