Treatment Landscape for Acute Myeloid Leukemia Appears Hopeful for Patients

Eunice Wang, MD, chief of the leukemia service at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the excitement she has experienced in the treatment landscape of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) over the last several years due to the number of new treatment options approved by the FDA.

Most recently, the FDA extended the approval of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) to include an indication for the treatment of newly diagnosed pediatric patients with CD33-positive AML as young as 1 month old. Wang says it is exciting to be involved in the AML therapy field as she believes there are not many other rare cancer types that have seen such an explosion of new agents in the field.

Wang says it is exhilarating to see so many new treatment options for her patients with AML. She has been treating patients for over 15 years, and for 12 years, she primarily gave all patients with AML the same treatment. Because of all the FDA approvals and the development of new agents, she can tailor her treatments specifically to her individual patients to provide them the best outcomes.

At this time, it is important to be aware that AML is made up of many different diseases and subtypes. In order to obtain the best outcome, physicians need to expand their understanding of the disease, the complexity of the disease, and tailor their treatments in a precision medicine-based way for individual patients with AML.

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