This rare cancer has a notoriously bad prognosis.
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What is AML?
AML is a bang out of cancer of the bodys blood cells.
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These cells are made in the spongy tissue inside the bones, calledbone marrow.
Our bodies continually make them by stem cells that are constantlydividing and maturing into new cells.
The pop in of cells that become cancerous in AML determines the diseases subtype.
AML most often develops between the ages of 65 and 74.
What Influences AML Survival Rate?
AML isnt staged like other cancers since it doesnt form solid tumors.
The younger an AML patient is, the better their outlook is.
Older AML patients are more likely to have chromosomal abnormalities in their cancer cells that indicate a worse prognosis.
How Does AML pop in Affect AML Survival Rate?
AML subtypes are defined by the various changes to the cells that become cancerous.
Doctors use one of two different staging systems to categorize AML subtypes.
The tests needed to assess cancer’s FAB stage focus on how the cancer cells look under the microscope.
These molecular changes to cancer cells include gene mutations, chromosomal abnormalities, and tumor markers.
There are seven subtypes of AML defined by the WHO classification system.
The WHO staging system takes into account several molecular changes as the basis of these groupings.
Some specific changes are related to a better prognosis, while others are related to a worse prognosis.
How Does Response to Treatment Affect AML Survival Rate?
The best survival is in patients under age 20, with a five-year survival rate of 68%.
For people 20 and older, the five-year survival rate is 26%.
Older AML patients are more likely to have chromosomal abnormalities in their cancer cells that indicate a worse prognosis.
A Word From Verywell
Facing a diagnosis of AML can be difficult.
Frequently Asked Questions
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) can be fatal, especially in older patients.
Chemotherapy treatments for AML can be intense.
Doctors usually give chemotherapy for AML in two or three phases.
Induction chemotherapy is very strong and only given for a week to kill off cancer cells in the blood.
Consolidation chemotherapy is given in multiple cycles after the patient has recovered from induction.
Finally, maintenance chemotherapy is a much lower dose of chemotherapy drugs and can last months or years.
It is used for specific subtypes of AML.
AML is hard to treat because its an aggressive, quick-growing cancer.
AML in the central nervous system isnt that common.
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American Cancer Society.What is acute myeloid leukemia (AML)?
National Cancer Institute.Hematopoietic stem cell - NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms.
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Asmuth MM, et.
al.Interaction of remission status and cause of death in acute myeloid leukemia.
American Society Of Hematology annual meeting.
American Cancer Society.Chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
