What is sustained MRD negativity.
Several years ago, the field was debating back and forth how to define MRD negativity, and 10 to -5 was the agreement for the first version that we currently use is still the one that exists. There was a discussion about updating it, but still ten to minus. Minus five is what we use. There is more and more interest in checking over time.
The field has come from not really being used to have MRD tests to Everyone now agrees that this is important. So the next step is do we need to check over time and see? And emerging data shows that a patient that achieves MRD negativity has a longer progression free survival than the patient whose MRD positive There is a small proportion of patients that could lose to MRD negative status.
In my experience, it's maybe 5% or something like that in the first year. If a patient loses MRD status and becomes an MRD positive doing the following year, unfortunately there was a high risk that that could be associated with a progression, a clinical progression of the patient that is MRD negative and a year later is sustained MRD negative.
And if you check another year out and is MRD sustained MRD negative, that the patient has a very high likelihood of staying free from the disease.
HealthTree • June 22, 2023