Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is cancer that starts inside bone marrow, the soft tissue inside bones that helps form blood cells. The cancer grows from cells that would normally turn into white blood cells. Acute means the disease develops quickly.
Treatment
There is no localised trestment for leukemia. The treatment itself carries risk of mortality caused by infection. This is because the treatment is crude and untargeted. Killing the cancer cells involves killing the healthy cells completely. Leaving the patient with no immunity. Being young has an advantage and less likely to have complications.
Moving forward, if the patient responds well to chemo and is in remission (no more cancer cells). A bone marrow transplant will likely need to be undertaken. Best case scenario would be a complete sibling match. There is a 25% chance of a complete match and 50% chance of a half match.
For those of chinese descent, a chance of a match from an unrelated donor is also an option with registries from Taiwan and China. From these registries, there is a 1 out of 2 chance of finding a match.
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