hard FACTS & real HOPE
For The Second Most Common Form Of Adult Leukemia
September is Blood Cancer Awareness month, a time for survivors, patient advocates and supporters to shine a light on this challenging cancer.
Chances are you may not know that much about blood cancer unless it has impacted you or someone you love. Maybe you know that blood cancer includes lymphoma, myeloma, and leukemia. It’s less likely that you’d know about the different types of leukemia, including the second most common form, acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Uncommon in those under 45, AML was diagnosed in approximately 1,100 Canadians in 2016. Why AML is called “acute” is because the condition usually starts suddenly and develops within days or weeks; “myeloid” relates to the type of cell it affects, and “leukemia” refers to cancer of the blood forming tissues.
Symptoms can include paleness, unexplained bruising, fatigue and breathlessness during normal physical activity, mild fever, and weight loss.
AML has many different subtypes. For most cancers, the stage and grade of cancer tumour can tell the healthcare team a lot about your prognosis and the appropriate treatment plan. But because AML presents throughout the blood, prognosis depends largely on the subtype, which is often determined by lab tests.
Dr. Brian Leber, Professor, McMaster University and clinical hematologist, notes, “Knowing your subtype can be very important not just for understanding the expected outcome but so that your healthcare team can make the best choices about your treatment path.”
One of the sub-types is secondary AML which includes therapeutic related AML (T-AML), caused by prior chemotherapy or radiation and myelodysplasia-related AML (AML-MRC), which occurs when a person has abnormal bone marrow cells due to a prior blood disorder. These generally put patients at a higher risk of poorer outcomes.
The 5-year net survival for AML is only 21%. However, while the prognosis of AML is sobering, the good news is that there are treatments available. Treatment consists of a variety of anticancer drugs including chemotherapy and where possible, stem cell transplant.