Health Topic

Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a cancer of the white blood cells. AML usually gets worse quickly if it is not treated. Read more.

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Also called: AML · ANLL · Acute myelogenous leukemia

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Leukemia is a term for cancers of the blood cells. Leukemia starts in blood-forming tissues such as the bone marrow. Your bone marrow makes the cells which will develop into white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets. Each type of cell has a different job:

  • White blood cells help your body fight infection
  • Red blood cells deliver oxygen from your lungs to your tissues and organs
  • Platelets help form clots to stop bleeding

When you have leukemia, your bone marrow makes large numbers of abnormal cells. This problem most often happens with white blood cells. These abnormal cells build up in your bone marrow and blood. They crowd out the healthy blood cells and make it hard for your cells and blood to do their work.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a type of acute leukemia. "Acute" means that the leukemia usually gets worse quickly if it's not treated. In AML, the bone marrow makes abnormal myeloblasts (a type of white blood cell), red blood cells, or platelets. When the abnormal cells crowd out the healthy cells, it can lead to infection, anemia, and easy bleeding. The abnormal cells can also spread outside the blood to other parts of the body.

There are several different subtypes of AML. The subtypes are based on how developed the cancer cells are when you get your diagnosis and how different they are from normal cells.

AML happens when there are changes in the genetic material (DNA) in bone marrow cells. The cause of these genetic changes is unknown. However, there are certain factors that raise your risk of AML.

The factors that raise your risk of AML include:

  • Being male
  • Smoking, especially after age 60
  • Having had chemotherapy or radiation therapy
  • Treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) as a child
  • Exposure to the chemical benzene
  • A history of another blood disorder such as myelodysplastic syndrome

The signs and symptoms of AML include:

  • Fever
  • Shortness of breath
  • Easy bruising or bleeding
  • Petechiae, which are tiny red dots under the skin. They are caused by bleeding.
  • Weakness or feeling tired
  • Weight loss or loss of appetite
  • Bone or joint pain, if the abnormal cells build up near or inside the bones

Your health care provider may use many tools to diagnose AML and figure out which subtype you have:

  • A physical exam
  • A medical history
  • Blood tests, such as a complete blood count (CBC) and blood smear
  • Bone marrow tests. There are two main types - bone marrow aspiration and bone marrow biopsy. Both tests involve removing a sample of bone marrow and bone. The samples are sent to a lab for testing.
  • Genetic tests to look for gene and chromosome changes

If you are diagnosed with AML, you may have additional tests to see whether the cancer has spread. These include imaging tests and a lumbar puncture, which is a procedure to collect and test cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Treatments for AML include:

  • Chemotherapy
  • Radiation therapy
  • Chemotherapy with stem cell transplant
  • Other anticancer medicines

Which treatment you get often depends on which subtype of AML you have. Treatment is usually done in two phases:

  • The goal of the first phase is to kill the leukemia cells in the blood and bone marrow. This puts the leukemia into remission. Remission means that the signs and symptoms of cancer are reduced or have disappeared.
  • The second phase is known as post-remission therapy. Its goal is to prevent a relapse (return) of the cancer. It involves killing any remaining leukemia cells that may not be active but could begin to regrow.

It sits within Cancers and Blood, Heart and Circulation.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Cancer Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Acute Myeloid Leukemia

4,247 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

Start Here

Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Genetics

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.