Current and Emerging Therapies for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is predominantly a disease of older adults and the majority of affected patients succumb to the disease. After decades of slow progress, the last 5 years have witnessed remarkable progress in AML therapy with the approval of multiple highly active and well-tolerated novel therapies. Notable among these are agents targeting driver mutations including FLT3, IDH1/2 as well as the Bcl-2 inhibitor venetoclax. The combination of hypomethylating agents with venetoclax is highly active in AML and has become the standard of care for older patients as well as those with comorbidities. As a result of these advances, a larger proportion of AML patients now achieve complete remissions enabling them to undergo allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation with curative intent. Progress is also being made in the field of monoclonal antibodies targeting leukemia antigens and other immunotherapies and many such agents are currently under active investigation.