AML and other forms of blood cancer are an important medical problem where so far no affordable cure exists. While diagnosis in the initial stages is still tricky, cures depend on costly therapies and hospitalization notwithstanding patient's vulnerability to side effects. Has today's medical science progressed to accurately diagnose and cure blood cancers? How about early application of stem cells?
A cell-engineering approach is currently being tested
by LMU Munich researchers. Monocytes are gotten from
a patient, turned into dendritic cells with a specialized
TLR and serve as a vaccine against AML.
http://www.technology-transfer-blog.com/university-research/39-universities/233-new-vaccine-against-the-chronic-myelogenous-leukaemia-is-being-tested-clinically
http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news455147
A DNA vaccine against AML and CML
http://phys.org/news/2011-01-southampton-scientists-patient-trials-leukemia.html
New drugs are Quizartinib, Azacitidin, Gemtuzumab Ozogamicin,
Doxorubicin
Interesting genes or proteins are FLT3, HLX, CD123, Mcl-1, PRC2,
DNMT3A, CDK1, CDX2
Regards,
Joachim (not a medic)
Blood cancers in children are curable and the necessary treatments are affordable. Consequently, the most common childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia has been curable in most countries for more than 20 years. If you are referring to adult leukemias, certain subtypes are easier to treat than others. Therefore, my suggestion would be to make your question much more specific. For general information about leukemias, one of the many available sites would be the www.cancer.gov site. Example: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/childALL/Patient/page1
Leukemia is curable at different rates. Estimation of survival depends on several factors, some of them are in the patient himself and some in he care that's being given to him and type of drug and the treatment regime. For example, in Iraq AML is a fatal disease with fatality exceeding 60% shortly after diagnosis. Because the cornerstone of treatment depends on keeping the patient alive while killing all stem cells in the bone marrow and may be in his body. If patient survives this period he will be cured provided that no residual leukemia stem cells survive. Recently, studies are made to find targets for specific anti-leukemia stem cell therapy. There are promising results, but they're still inside the lab.
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