Describing Therapy and Outcome for Patients with Relapsed Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Mentor: Dr. Richard Aplenc
Leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most life-threatening form of leukemia and accounts for more than 50% of leukemia deaths. It requires the most intensive chemotherapy treatment spanning over 6-8 months. While advances in chemotherapy have improved AML survival over recent decades, more than 10% of the patients experience refractory disease, and about one-third relapse following a first remission. While there has been substantial standardization in practice related to frontline therapy for AML, there is greater variability in treatment of relapsed disease. Furthermore, given the variability in treatment and the small numbers of patients at any one institution, there is limited information on the relative effectiveness of the treatments being utilized for refractory or relapsed disease.
This project will focus on obtaining cytogenetics data at diagnosis and relapse for a longitudinal cohort of pediatric patients with relapsed Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) from multiple sites across the United States. The goal is to better understand the factors that determine treatment response in relapsed pediatric AML. This project seeks to provide valuable evidence to aid clinicians, patients, and caregivers in selecting the most appropriate strategy for treatment of relapsed AML.
