Acute myeloid leukemia chemotherapy is used for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, which is also known as acute myelogenous leukemia or in terms of a layman, it is cancer of the blood. In this cancer,  the myeloid cells present in the bone marrow are affected. The production of the cells take place in the bone marrow. In this cancer, there is an abnormal production of the white blood cells in the bone marrow. This interferes with the normal production of the blood cells. If this cancer is not cured immediately, it can become worse.

Symptoms: Bleeding from the nose, bruising, swollen gums, abnormal menstrual periods in women, pain in bones, fatigue, fever, paleness, shortness of breath.

Diagnosis: This cancer is diagnosed when reports of the blood and the bone marrow show an abnormal rate of leukemia cells. There are further tests to reveal the sub types of AML as there are eight sub-types of this cancer.

Treatment

The current treatments for acute myeloid leukemia include chemotherapy, stem cells transplantation and other drug therapies.

Chemotherapy treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)

The treatment for acute myeloid leukemia mainly consists of chemotherapy. The treatment of this cancer can be divided into two parts: remission induction and consolidation therapy. The drugs commonly used in the chemotherapy treatment are: cytarabine, daunorubicin or idarubicin, mitoxantrone, Amsacrine, fludarabine and etoposide.

• Induction therapy: The remission induction or the induction therapy is given in order to kill the cancer cells in the blood. The drugs used for the induction therapy are: cytarabine, mitoxantrone, daunorubicin or idarubicin. Cytarabine is given intravenously for seven days. For the first three days, an anthracycline like idarubicin or daunorubicin is given intravenously. After that there is a rest period of about 14 days and then the second cycle is repeated. In most of the patients, the first phase of induction lasts for about four weeks. As the gap between two chemotherapy cycles are very short and the treatment is given continuously over a period of seven days, the patients usually stay in the hospital during the treatment. After this treatment, most of the patients achieve complete remission, which means that the disease is not detected in the blood stream. However, if the induction chemotherapy does not destroy all the leukemia cells, the oncologists might give further chemotherapy cycles to the patients in order to achieve complete remission.
• Consolidation: In many patients, the induction therapy usually achieves temporary results. This is because some cancerous cells present in the blood might be undetected by the various diagnostic techniques available these days. So if consolidation therapy or post remission therapy is not given then chances are that AML might relapse. This treatment usually involves about 3 to 5 cycles of intensive or high dose chemotherapy. The drugs that are usually used for this treatment are cytarabine, mitoxantrone, etoposide, and Amsacrine.
• Maintenance: The last stage is the maintenance therapy. In this treatment, a patient goes for a check up on a regular basis. Low dose chemotherapy is given for about three years. The doctors check for any signs of a relapse and also decide the duration for the last phase of the treatment.

Stem Cell Transplantation for AML Treatment: In this treatment the patients are usually given a very high dose of chemotherapy treatment. The doctors take a call on whether a patient should be given this treatment. Before this treatment is given the healthy and immature cells from the patient’s bone marrow or from a donor’s bone marrow is frozen and stored. When the chemotherapy treatment is completed, these cells are thawed and given to the patient by way of infusion. These cells help to restore the blood cells of the body.

If a patient needs to get bone marrow transplant from another person, then the donor should be an identical twin of the patient, or can be a sibling whose blood matches well with the patient and should also be under 65 years of age.

Patients who are above 60 years of age and in whom AML relapses after giving induction therapy, can be given hematopoietic stem cell transplant. These patients can undergo treatment with Mylotarg, which is a monoclonal antibody-linked cytotoxic agent. They can also undergo targeted therapies for AML.

Side Effects of Acute Myeloid Chemotherapy

Most of the side effects are temporary and all the patients will not have all the side effects of chemotherapy treatment. These side effects include: nausea and vomiting, bone marrow suppression, alopecia, stomach ache, diarrhea, changes in the texture and color of the hair, infertility and depression. However, most of these side effects are short lived and usually go away after chemotherapy treatment stops. Some long term complications that can arise due to acute myeloid chemotherapy are: hemorrhagic cystitis, cerebellar toxicity and lowering of the body’ ability to fight against diseases.

Patients undergoing treatment for a relapse of AML and receiving bone marrow transfusions from a donor are exposed to the disease that the donor’s blood may have.

Prognosis of AML

Although AML has a high rate of prognosis, the chance of complete remission depends on several factors like: subtype of AML, the stage of the cancer, age of the patient and the health of the patient. An important factor that determines the prognosis is the chromosome structure or cytogenetics of the leukemia cell. However, with the advent of acute myeloid chemotherapy drugs, the medical world offers hope for patients suffering from this cancer.