Hi Mary and Dane! You’ve both been on my mind so much lately and then the day gets away before I can get a message typed out! Well, this is the best news I’ve seen today! Day 300, clean biopsy and the fact that you two were able to escape for R&R in the warmth of the sunny South for a month! A taste of normalcy that, a year ago, wasn’t in the cards. I couldn’t be happier for both of you!! My days of flips and cartwheels are over but I’m doin’ a happy dance. 😅

It’s really encouraging that Dane’s biopsies and cytometry tests have been clean. You asked about MRD vs NED. In my own experience I’ve only had MRD testing post treatment. That test seems to be more commonly used with leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma to check for any remaining cancer cells which might hide out in the body after treatment and may be undetectable by standard tests. However, I have a close friend who also had AML and her doctor uses NED for her post treatment. I don’t know the protocol for determining which method to use with AML. But since Dane is working with a highly reputable medical clinic, I wouldn’t read too much into the difference in testing…or look for trouble! 😊 As his doctor said, she can request have an MRD requested with his next biopsy. I looked back in my rest results and see that I had one MRD 2 years post transplant.

I pulled up a couple of sites that might give you some insights about the tests. But with Dane’s biopsies being clean and his having monthly maintanence treatments, maybe waiting until is he completely finished with treatments before having the MDR is a better option? It’s a generally recognized in the BMT world that if we can go 22 months without a relapse, then statistically, the odds of having a recurrence drops dramatically. That may be why my MRD was at 24 months. I guess I never thought to ask.

Anyway, here are a couple of sites about MRD:
MDAnderson, https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/what-is-minimal-residual-disease--mrd--multiple-myeloma-lymphoma-leukemia-patients.h00-159383523.html
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From the LLS. https://www.lls.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/FSHP5_MRD_Factsheet_Apil2021.pdf
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This from healthline.com about NED
https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/ned-cancer#takeaway
If your husband’s hematologist oncologist is using the term NED, I’d feel pretty warm and fuzzy with that news and take it for what it means. She’s found no evidence of disease. ☺️