Standards of diagnostic and new trends in treatment in patients with acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common cancer of white blood cells in adults. Men over 65 years old are more prone to develop this disease. Symptoms that lead patients to visit the doctor are: high fever, bone pain, weakness and signs of infection. The etiology of AML is not yet fully understood. The predisposing factors for acute myeloid leukemia may include environmental and genetic factors. If left untreated, it can lead to death within a few weeks. Therefore, it is important to quickly identify the disease and to implement appropriate treatment, which will allow to increase the percentage of survival among patients. The basis of AML diagnosis is the presence of more than 20% of blasts in blood or bone marrow smears. The choice of AML treatment depends on prognostic factors: patients’ age and sex and cytogenetic-molecular risk. The treatment regimen for AML is outdated and remains almost unchanged for over 30 years. Understanding the molecular basis of this disease development and pathomechanism allows to search for new effective treatments, often based on targeted therapies. This article presents contemporary standards of AML diagnosis and the latest trends in its treatment.