How Long Does Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Treatment Last?

Well I think it’s very important to realise that these treatment decisions depend very much on, as I’ve said, the patient’s age, the patient’s fitness, and what sort of disease.  And we’re increasingly recognising that acute myeloid leukaemia is not a single disease, it’s a whole range of diseases, and there are different sorts requiring different treatment.

So I think it’s quite difficult to say, therefore, that there’s one package fits all.  But in younger people you are conventionally thinking about intensive chemotherapy, two, three or four cycles, and in people under 65 or 70 who are fit the other decision would be whether a bone marrow or stem cell transplant is required.  That’s increasingly used as an important way of maximising the anti-leukemic potential of chemotherapy.

If you’re having intensive chemotherapy those are usually inpatient stays, although the second and third and fourth course can sometimes be split between inpatient stay and outpatient.   A transplant itself will depend on finding a donor, and that is an important and curative approach but it’s quite a complex procedure and that would need to be separately discussed with patients, but that of course would involve another month in hospital and then two or three months recovery.