Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Biologic, Prognostic, and Therapeutic Insights

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a biologically complex and molecularly and clinically heterogeneous disease, and its incidence is increasing as the population ages. Unfortunately, currently used "one-size-fits-all" chemotherapy regimens result in cure for only a minority of patients. Although progress has been made in identifying subsets of patients who require chemotherapy alone as compared with those who require initial chemotherapy followed by allogeneic stem cell transplantation to maximize the chance for cure clinical and cytogenetic prognosticators are not sufficiently accurate for such a risk-adapted stratification approach. New molecular technologies have allowed for in-depth molecular analyses of AML patients. These studies have revealed novel mutations, epigenetic changes, and/or aberrant expression levels of protein-coding and noncoding genes involved in leukemogenesis. These molecular aberrations are now being increasingly used not only to select risk-adapted treatment strategies, but also to incorporate newer molecularly targeted agents into conventional chemotherapy and/or transplant treatments. The hope is that this approach will lead to a better selection of "personalized" treatments for individual patients at diagnosis, the ability to assess these treatments in real time, and the ability, if necessary, to modify these therapies utilizing molecular endpoints for guidance regarding their antileukemia activity. We review here the state of the art of diagnosis and treatment of AML and provide insights into the emerging novel biomarkers and therapeutic agents that are anticipated to be useful for the implementation of personalized medicine in AML.