[Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)]

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) appears related to some environmental factors and higher age. The morphological subtypes reflect genotypes as detected by specific chromosome translocations and related fusion genes. Genotypes determine the disease biology and prognosis. Chemotherapy remains as the backbone of treatment and has brought the long-term disease-free survival to 30-40%. Factors contributing to the improved results are prolonged maintenance, double induction strategy and high dose AraC in postremission and induction phase. Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation adds to the improvements by the graft versus leukemia effect. Autologous stem cell transplantations may allow further escalation of postremission chemotherapy and might thus further improve the cure rate in AML.