Therapeutic Advances in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

The choice of treatment approach and outcome in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) depends on the age of the patient. In younger patients, arbitrarily defined as being younger than 60 years, 70% to 80% enter complete disease remission with several anthracycline-based chemotherapy combinations. Consolidation with high-dose cytarabine or stem-cell transplantation in high-risk patients will restrict overall relapse to approximately 50%. A number of demographic features can predict the outcome of treatment including cytogenetics and an increasing list of molecular features (ie, FLT3, NPM1, MLL, WT1, CEBPalpha, EVI1). These are increasingly being used to direct postinduction therapy, but they are also molecular targets…