What Does Minimal Residual Disease Mean?

During the 2025 American Society of Hematology annual meeting, held earlier this month in Orlando, Florida, CURE sat down with an expert to discuss the concept of minimal residual disease, or MRD, and what it means for patients with multiple myeloma.

Dr. Dickran Kazandjian is a professor of clinical medicine in the Myeloma Institute at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in Florida, and he is also a member of CURE’s advisory board. Kazandjian is also the associate director of the Sylvester Myeloma Institute and assistant director of clinical research studies in the office of clinical research at the Sylvester Myeloma Institute.

Kazandjian was the lead researcher on a clinical trial, interim results of which were presented at the 2025 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, showing that treatment with the immune and cancer cell-targeting antibody Lynozyfic (linvoseltamab) was found to eradicate residual traces of multiple myeloma among all of the 18 patients who completed up to six cycles of treatment, according to a news release that was issued by the University of Miami.

Transcript

What does minimal residual disease mean, and why is it an important concept for patients with multiple myeloma to understand?

Minimal residual disease negativity is a concept that we use to basically describe how we can get rid of the very, very last remaining cells that, based on more traditional ways of viewing response, are not captured. So, what I mean is really the level of detection or sensitivity. When we say patients are MRD negative, we mean at the very least, after looking at 100,000 normal cells in the bone marrow, you have to prove that not even one of them is a bad myeloma cell. And we've made a lot of advances, and slowly, we're even getting to change the one in 100,000 to one in a million.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Reference

1. “Antibody Therapy Eradicates Traces of Multiple Myeloma in Preliminary Trial,” news release; https://news.med.miami.edu/ash-2025-immunoplant-phase-2-trial/

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