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Therein lies the problem with statistics, Hopeful. It's hard not to read more into them than is there, or make certain assumptions that may not be warranted. In articles that cite the 35% relapse rate, I have seen no mention of where non-survivers fit into the picture or how that skews the percentage. I was assuming that death would be preceded by a relapse, but of course there could be other scenarios too.
I guess the point I was trying to make is: if the majority of responders to IST will not have a relapse of their AA, that seems pretty close to a "cure" for those people, regardless of their age. Of course not all of them will return to full normal counts, so maybe that's the distinction. However, when you throw in GVHD and all of the other baggage that goes with a transplant, it's hard to see it as a clear-cut case of one being a total cure that you can walk away from with no issues, while the other isn't.
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-Lisa, husband Ken age 60 dx SAA 7/04, dx hypo MDS 1/06 w/finding of trisomy 8; 2 ATGs, partial remission, still using cyclosporine
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