Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version - National Cancer Institute

Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version - National Cancer Institute

Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version

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ON THIS PAGE

• General Information About Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
• Classification of Adult AML
• Treatment Option Overview for Adult AML
• Treatment of Newly Diagnosed Adult AML
• Adult AML in Remission
• Recurrent Adult AML
• Changes to This Summary (08/11/2020)
• About This PDQ Summary

General Information About Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

In This Section

• Incidence and Mortality
• Anatomy
• Clinical Presentation
• Diagnostic Evaluation
• Prognosis and Prognostic Factors
• Long-term Effects of Cancer Treatment
• Related Summaries

AML is also called acute myelogenous leukemia and acute nonlymphocytic leukemia.

Incidence and Mortality

Estimated new cases and deaths from AML in the United States in 2020:[1]

• New cases: 19,940.
• Deaths: 11,180.

Based on Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program 18 data from 2009 to 2015, 28.3% of patients with AML were alive 5 years after diagnosis.[2]

Anatomy

ENLARGE

Blood cell development. A blood stem cell goes through several steps to become a red blood cell, platelet, or white blood cell.

AML is a heterogenous group of blood cancers that arise as a result of clonal expansion of myeloid hematopoietic precursors in the bone marrow. Not only are circulating leukemia cells (also called blasts) seen in the peripheral blood, but granulocytopenia, anemia, and thrombocytopenia are also common as proliferating leukemia cells interfere with normal hematopoiesis.[3]