Re: I am reading the boards but not understanding the …

I don't know what sites have the % and possible length of Life.  Each case is different, depending on your stage and other conditions.  You would have to talk to your doctor about that.

The statistics are changing all the time and the  year longevity statistics were created 5 years ago.

NED – No evidence of disease.  After the last surgery or treatment, the clock starts for how long you have been without any evidence of Mel.  the longer the better.  I am at 3 months and hope it gets up into years soon.

SNB – Sentinel node biopsy.  Done to remove a few sentinel nodes to see if the Mel has moved from a localized site to the lymph nodes.  They usually do some type of Cat scan with Dye to find out where the local Sentinel nodes are, depending on where your Mel is.  They could be in the calf, thigh, abdomen, chest/neck.  if the SNB shows no evidence of mel in those nodes, then the disease has not spread that far through the lymph nodes and that is a good thing.

LND – Lymph node dissection.  If the SNB had some nodes that were positive for Mel, the surgeon may want to do a Lymph node dissection where they remove a lot more lymph nodes from the area.  This could tend to lead towards issues with Lymphadema or swelling of the body as the Lymph fluid builds up in that area.  In my case, they did a LND and looked for another major lymph node in my thigh and since that one was negative, they stopped removing any more lymph nodes.

WBR – Whole brain radiation.

There are probably a lot more abbreviations people are using to keep from spelling out the whole term each time.

Good luck on your journey.  Mine started in March and I was scared and uneducated at the time.  I am still scared, swollen, in pain from radiation, but i am getting a little more educated each day trying to fight this beast.

Bill