Your overall health, subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia, your age, and your preferences determine treatment type for your acute myelogenous leukemia. You undergo extensive chemotherapy during remission therapy phase.
Treatments and Medications for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia
New York (USA), June 25, 2013
Treatments Options and Medications for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia
Your overall health, subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia, your age, and your preferences determine treatment type for your acute myelogenous leukemia. Normally, acute myelogenous leukemiatreatment falls within two phases:
1. Remission Induction Therapy: This is the first and primary phase of acute myelogenous leukemia treatment. This phase aims at killing leukemia cells in your blood and bone marrow. Nonetheless, this therapy cannot kill all leukemic cells. Hence, you have to undergo another continuing therapy for complete cure.
2. Consolidation Therapy: The main aim of this therapy is to destroy remaining leukemic cells to prevent chances of relapse. This is same as maintenance therapy, post-remission therapy, or maintenance intensification.
Treatment therapies used in these phases include:
Chemotherapy: This is primarily used in remission induction therapy to kill leukemic cells, although it can also be used in consolidation phase to some extent. Specific chemical agents are used to kill leukemic cells. You are hospitalized during chemotherapy treatment as it also destroys many normal blood cells during the course of treatment. If the first cycle of chemotherapy does not kill cancerous cells, you should undergo another cycle to prevent possible relapse of acute myelogenous leukemia.
Drug Therapy: Anti-cancer drugs like all-trans retinoic acid or ATRA and Arsenic trioxide or Trisenox can be used with chemotherapy or alone to treat promyelocytic leukemia, a specific subtype of acute myelogenous leukemia. Leukemia cells with specific gene mutation die or stop dividing due to these drugs.
Stem Cell Transplant: This is done during consolidation therapy. You undergo extensive chemotherapy during remission therapy phase. Thereafter stem cell transplant or bone transplant replaces unhealthy bone marrow with leukemia-free stem cells to re-establish healthy cells and prompt regrowth of a healthy bone marrow. Such transplantation could be autologous or allogeneic. Autologous transplant is when you receive your own stem cells and allogeneic is when your receive stem cell infusion from a compatible donor.
Clinical Trials: Some patients are ready to enroll in clinical trials of new medications and experiments with different combination of drugs and therapies. Normally, such patients are unsuitable for conventional treatment approaches.
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