Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment
As home to one of the world's leading leukemia programs, MD Anderson's Leukemia Center and Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Center bring together internationally renowned physicians with a specialized support team to customize your care. These highly experienced experts communicate and collaborate daily, ensuring you receive comprehensive leukemia treatment.
Many of these doctors focus not just on leukemia, but on specific types of leukemia, giving them a deep level of knowledge and experience to draw on when designing treatment plans.
The goal of leukemia treatment is to put the disease into remission and ultimately cure the patient. For leukemia, complete remission usually means that the patient’s bone marrow has no detectable microscopic evidence of the disease and his or her blood counts have returned to normal.
Even with normal blood counts, many leukemia patients require ongoing maintenance therapy to stay in remission. In some cases, patients in remission undergo a stem cell transplant to maintain remission.
Patients who remain in continued complete remission for an extended period of time are considered cured. This means they have an extremely low chance of recurrence. The exact amount of time it takes to be considered cured differs among leukemia types, but it is typically measured in years.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treatment plans
Treatment for newly diagnosed AML patients typically focuses on chemotherapy. If intense rounds of chemotherapy are too difficult for the patient to undergo due to age or overall health, targeted therapy drugs may be given instead.
Stem cell transplantation is also a treatment for AML. It is usually given to patients with recurrent AML (meaning the disease was in remission but has returned) or refractory AML (meaning the disease has not responded to standard treatments). It can also be an initial treatment for patients with particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat types of AML.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy for AML is usually given in stages:
- Remission induction: This is an intense phase of treatment designed to kill leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow. It usually requires a hospital stay. The goal is to bring cancer into remission.
- Consolidation: This phase of chemotherapy is meant to kill any remaining cancer cells that survived the induction phase.
In many cases, AML patients may undergo a third chemotherapy phase, known as maintenance. In the maintenance phase, patients receive a lower dose of chemotherapy over an extended period to stop the cancer from returning.
Patients may also be given a small dose of chemotherapy in their central nervous system to prevent the disease from spreading to this area. Stem cell transplant patients may also undergo chemotherapy to prepare their body for the procedure.
Targeted therapy
Targeted therapy drugs are designed to stop or slow the growth or spread of cancer. This happens on a cellular level. Cancer cells need specific molecules (often in the form of proteins) to survive, multiply and spread. These molecules are usually made by the genes that cause cancer, as well as the cells themselves. Targeted therapies are designed to interfere with, or target, these molecules or the cancer-causing genes that create them.
Learn more about targeted therapy.
Stem cell transplantation
A stem cell transplant (also known as a bone marrow transplant) is a procedure that replaces cancerous bone marrow with new, healthy bone marrow stem cells. Stem cell transplants are usually given after an intense round of chemotherapy that kills the patient’s existing bone marrow cells and prepares the body for transplant. Patients usually must stay in the hospital for three to four weeks after the procedure.
A stem cell transplant may be needed for patients whose leukemia has returned or has not responded to standard treatments. It may also be recommended if the patient has a high-risk form of leukemia that would make a cure with standard treatments unlikely. This treatment can be physically challenging, so it is typically not given to patients who are older or otherwise unhealthy.
Learn more about stem cell transplants.
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy uses power beams of energy to kill cancer cells. Since leukemia cells travel in the blood stream, there is no distinct tumor to target with radiation therapy like there is other cancers. Instead, radiation may be used when the disease has spread to the central nervous system.
Learn more about radiation therapy.
Clinical trials
As a top-ranked cancer center, MD Anderson offers multiple clinical trials for AML. Many of these cannot be found anywhere else. Trials explore new drug combinations and new drugs, including targeted therapies and immunotherapies.
Learn more about clinical trials.
Some cases of leukemia can be passed down from one generation to the next. Genetic counseling may be right for you. Learn more about the risk to you and your family on our genetic testing page.
