What are the signs and symptoms of AML? The signs and symptoms of a patient with AML initially are often nebulous and nonspecific. Patients will often remark that they just didn't feel well, they've been back and forced to their doctor once or twice with flu-like symptoms, only later to be found to have AML. Well, we should understand it doesn't mean that their general doctor made a mistake. If somebody is fatigued, not eating well, losing weight, these are nonspecific things that we incur in our lives on a regular basis and they come and go for multiple reasons. It's really little flus or things that we get over. And it's really uncommon that they persist due to a cancer like AML. And so it's the nonspecific presentations that persist for a number of weeks that prompt a physical exam and blood work, which would show us some signs of concern that would lead to a workup and diagnose AML. When we think about how leukemia behaves, the sort of signs and symptoms follow from this. So the white count is generally high or low, but you're not making the normal immune cells, not making good infection-fighting cells. So very often people will come in with signs of infection, fevers, pneumonia, sometimes infections in the bloodstream, infections in the intestinal tract, pretty much anywhere you can think of, can become infected, and that can be a presentation for these patients. They're going to be anemic because, again, they're not producing the normal red cells. And so if you're anemic, you can be tired, dizzy, lightheaded, short of breath. If you have underlying heart problems, sometimes that can actually bring on angina, chest pain. So that's another manifestation of the disease. And finally, the platelet count can be low. And when your platelet count is low, you can bruise more easily. You can have spontaneous bleeding, nosebleeds, gum bleeding, and of course, more serious bleeding, too, bleeding in the digestive tract from the intestines and this sort of thing. So those are the general manifestations of the disease.
