Klin Onkol 1999; 12(3): 82-90.
Abstract: Acute myeloid leukernia is still an extremely serious oncological disease that needs prompt treatrnent at a specialized departrnent. Untreated or insufficiently treated disease leads unavoidably to the patients death. In the last 10 years, great progress has been achieved, and today it is possible to cure about 50 percent of patients. Modem therapy of acute myeloid leukemia is, however, very aggressive and it brings many complications to the patients as well as to the staff. It is also very expensive. The therapy starts as the induction treatment in order to achieve hematological remission. Cytarabine, anthracyclines, and etoposide are the drugs mostly used. Then, postremission therapy is administered. There are several ways how to perforrn it and a combination of some procedures is possible. Intensive consolidation using chemotherapy, autologous or allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is used most frequently. In this review, all these procedures are extensively discussed. The role of hematopoietic growth factors and the importance of prognostic factors is also mentioned.
