AML’s growing options

For acute myelogenous leukemia patients, 2017 marked the end of a more than 40 year drought in which chemotherapy was the only treatment option. In the last three years, eight new AML therapies have come to market spanning newly diagnosed and relapsed or refractory settings, and most target molecularly-defined patient subgroups.

Three of the newly approved agents target FLT3-mutated AML, and another nine targeting this subgroup are in clinical testing, according to BioCentury's BCIQ database. The FLT3 mutation was one of the first genetic mutations identified in AML; it occurs in about 30-40% of AML patients. Other AML subgroups with approved targeted therapies include CD33-positive patients and those with either IDH1 or IDH2 mutations. ...