Hayden is a rapid early responder!!!

Excellent news! But what exactly does it mean?

Hayden is currently in a very intensive 29-day chemotherapy treatment plan, called the induction phase. The purpose of this first phase is to kill most of the leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow. On Day 15, doctors take a bone marrow sample to determine if patients are rapidly responding to chemotherapy. If so, it's a good signal for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)...it often foretells a less intensive treatment plan after the induction phase. Yay!

Hayden's induction phase ends on Dec. 19 - that's when doctors will use more sensitive techniques to determine how many blasts (AKA: lymphoblasts; leukemic cells; bad guys) remain. This is called minimum residual disease (MRD) - it's a biggie. I'll provide more info about MRD in future posts.

BTW - everyone has lymphoblasts. Normally, blasts compose less than 5% of the cells made by the bone marrow and grow to form mature white blood cells, called lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell that fights infection). Leukemic blasts are abnormal because they remain immature, do not fight infection, and rapidly reproduce - which crowds out the good guys (normal red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets).