So You Have AML?

If you’re an older adult then maybe, but if you’re a child or younger adult then odds are you don’t, but for the sake of this page, let’s say you do. What do you do? Well, first you get off your computer and go see your closest oncologist. Are you trying to die? All joking aside, if you have AML, then you should know that you do have some options. Cancer is most definitely serious and many times deadly, but not always. The first step is to see an oncologist who will decide the treatment that is best for you, and I’m here to tell you what some of those treatments might be.

First off, your doctors will probably give you a red blood cell transfusion. Because of how the cancer works, odds are good you will probably be a little anemic. This transfusion should help with that anemia and make it a little easier for you to do… well anything that requires oxygen consumption. The second thing your doctors might do is give you allopurinol pills. These are pills that help your body flush out excess uric acid in your body. For those of you who are not as fresh in understanding biology as you’d like to be, uric acid is the stuff your body flushes out in urine.

The next step will be to proceed into induction chemo, which can last anywhere from 5-7 days. After this round of chemo, however, you may get sicker and more anemic. You will then receive a bone marrow transplant. It can take anywhere from 18-21 days for the bone marrow to start working again. Your doctors will then put you on consolidation therapy, which is more chemotherapy that is not quite so strong and is meant to kill any leukemia cells that are left. All this time you will spend in the hospital. This round of chemo will last three cycles, and a cycle depends on the drugs given and several other factors. At this stage, about 23% of cases are cured of the disease, and if you don’t enter remission, then you are in for another cycle of chemo.

Another option is to give you chemo or full body radiation that will destroy all of your bone marrow so that you can’t make anymore blood cells. At that point, your doctors will give you a bone marrow transplant to replace the bone marrow that you lost. If you’re worried about a painful operation that you have to go through for the transplant, don’t be. Bone marrow has a wonderful property of it migrating its way out of your blood stream and back into the bone. They will put an IV in your arm and let the bone marrow work its way to its new home. The good news is that at this point there is a 40-50% cure rate. If the cancer does recur, then the odds are that they didn’t get all of the cells with the radiation and chemo. If you reach this point, they will keep trying until you say you are done, or there is literally nothing left to do for you, or the best of the options, you are cured of the disease and live a long and happy cancer free life.

~Nick