In practice, we've now molecularly characterized most well-studied cancers and know that they tend to have the same mutations. For example, certain DNMT3A mutations are very common in AML and the BCR-ABL fusion protein in CML (and results from an interaction between chromosomes 9 and 22 that produces the mutant 'Philadelphia chromosome'). There are even a wide range of cancers that share similar patterns of mutations and fall under the umbrella of 'RAS-opathies', which all exhibit some kind of mutation in a subset of genes on a specific pathway related to cell differentiation and growth. Examples include certain subtypes of colon cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, among many others.
More generally, when a cancer is subtyped, that subtyping is always done with respect to some quantifiable biological trait or clinical endpoint and – as you've hinted – that subtyping is commonly a statistical assessment. Each cancer is unique and, even within an individual cancer, we have clonal subpopulations – groups of cells with differing mutations, characteristics, and behaviors. That's one of the reasons treating cancer can be so challenging; even if we eliminate one clonal population entirely, another resistant group may take its place. The implication is that cancers that emerge with post-treatment relapse are often 1. more or completely resistant to the original therapy, and 2. exhibit different behaviors and resistance, often to the detriment of the patient's outcome.