I do not think this is a stupid question probably because I have asked it myself. Many of us have asked it. A positive thing about aml, yes they're are positives, is that relapse goes down immensely after two years after treatment ends. The first year after treatment has the highest chance of relapse, the second le ss and then the third year drops to about 5% per my med team.

In Nov, I reached the one year after treatment milestone and expected a celebration with my med team. They were pleased but said well really celebrate at two years, that's the big one. I personally count from the day I went into remission after my first induction, April of 2013. This makes me happy and gives me hope.

We ask know people, even pay off this group who relapsed after the two year mark. It is very rare and devastating as any relapse is. I have a close friend who at the five year mark had his platelets take a huge dive. He took this event as he took his entire fight, with calm ness. I was and am impressed with him. Our med team watched his platelets for a few months. They standardized at this new below normal leve
He did not opt for a bmb because all other counts were stable. Now he is at six years and still living his life.

To quote one of our many sages on this site, cliff, don't ask any question that are not helpful. I have found this to be very helpful. For example, my consolidation sessions took twice as long due to slow count recovery resulting in a reduced chemo dose. I made the mistake of asking one of my oncologist what that meant to my positively of cute. You see, I received a letter at dx of inversion 16 that read that I had a70% chance of cure. Yes they used the word cure, in writing. I read and re read this letter. He said that it probably dropped it to 50%. He could immediately tell this response hit me hard. He then went on to tell me that outside of the us, the dose a received was the standard. It was too late. I was already fixating on the numbers.

I know I have not really answered your question because I think the answer depends. Nothing miraculous happens at five years. The miracles happen everyday when we have another day on this earth with our families. I try to focus on day to day and focus on Matthew six.

Do I succeed everyday? No. My constant prayer is that almighty God allows me the privilege of raising my daughter's. Of course raising means watching them graduate with a master's degree and start their family at 35 like me :-)

You are going to beat this. You have a favorable prognosis, you are young and most of all you have the z God of the universe on your side. I'm praying for a cure for you, yes I said cure as of today.

May God bless you and your family

Julie

Thanks so much Julie! I know God has this under control and in the end, it will all be perfect according to His plan. I, like you, pray every day (sometimes many many times) that I'll be given the chance to raise my boys and grow old with the love of my life. Thanks for your encouragement and for giving me hope. I'm glad that if we have to go through this, we are all going through this together. So glad I found this group!

I am so glad you found us too! I have never found a more encouraging group of warriors. We are encouraged, we encourage, we mourn, we celebrate, we remember and we pray together. Please stay with us. Your experience and perspective is unique and is sure to help others.

God bless your and your family

Julie

I started counting after I recovered from my last chemo because I had some hard (ICU-type) consolidation rounds and I was not at all convinced that I would survive until I recovered from that last one. Some studies use the remission date -- that would have been several months earlier for me, but at that point I was not even thinking about counting -- just surviving.

There really is not anything magic about five years except that is when they usually stop counting for people in a trial. That does NOT mean that they are cured -- it kind of means that they figure you might as well be cured because your chances of dying from something else are probably higher than from AML. I expect this is the case with me.

This will not give you a whole lot of comfort right now, but perhaps it will in the future (time flies). But the probability of a relapse DECREASES with time. So, while everyone else has one less day to live for every day they survive, you might have more than one because your chances of longer term survival increase every day that you survive. So, for example, the two year survivor had a whole lot less of a chance of relapse than the one year survivor.

Like I said, that it not going to give you much right now because you are just starting out, but I expect you are going to out-live me by several decades -- and that does not bother me a bit. I sure hope you do!!! Matter of fact, I will be praying to that effect -- dave

Cure is a controversial word in the cancer world, and it seems to me that this is even more the case with AML. We were told that chance of relapse drops significantly after two years (and I confess that I do not know if that is 2 years from remission or end of treatment...I believe end of treatment). The same is true for transplant. I believe that 5 years is sometimes used to suggest cured, since I believe very few people relapse after 5 years, though I'm would guess that it does happen. I think a lot of studies follow people for a minimum of five years after. I think that is where they get that number. I will say that until we came to the University of Minnesota for Julian's transplant, I had never heard a doctor use the word "cure." Many won't. My guess is that legally they are best off not to. Still, it was refreshing to hear that there was a doctor who believed enough in what she does to be able to say that she cures children. I would never sue her for that! :) Statistics, years, numbers...these are all for the doctors. They mean nothing when it comes to how an individual will do. There are a LOT of people who were never supposed to make it and did. The only explanation I can see for that is that there is a healer who is much stronger than any doctor. I pray everyday for a cure for my son and for everyone else that I know with AML. I guess my point is that I believe that a cure is possible. For those who are cured, they are cured as soon as they complete treatment. Why wait 2 years, 5 years, or even 10 years to believe it? Best wishes,
Jacki

Thanks Jacki and Dave. I appreciate your prayers and will likewise include all of you in mine. This AML rollercoaster is one heck of a ride.

Unlike the previous responses, I've mostly seen the magical five year mark as relating to five years after diagnosis. But I'm counting from date of transplant for myself, it's the conservative accountant in me.

As for cure, how do you define cure? My doctor told me we all make cancer cells all our life. Most of the time our immune system kills them off. But sometimes our immune system falls down on the job and the cancer cells start to win out. That's what the transplant process is all about, giving you a new immune system so you can fight off cancer cells properly. For you chemo only folks the docs have determined that your leukemia isn't quite as aggressive and after getting rid of as much of the leukemia cells as is detectable, your system can fight off the rest of the little buggers that might be hiding out.

The point is that if you subscribe to the fact that everyone makes cancer cells, and there appears to be some controversy about this, then someone without detectable cancer cells is in remission and someone with detectable cancer cells is not. So nobody is really cured, we all have cancer but we're in remission even if we've never been diagnosed with cancer. So right now I'm no different than the guy down the street who has never been diagnosed. We're both in remission. I'm OK with that, but I'll bet he's not so happy!

Like Lou I am counting from transplant and I know my doc and the clinical trial I am in counts from transplant date. My np won't actually use the word cured but she keeps telling me two years and no worries. Not that I am really all that worried now. I feel fantastic and If I relapse there is not a dang thing I can do about it anyway but start my fight all over again. I will be praying for your cure.
DaveJ