BETA - What are the signs and symptoms of acute myeloid leukemia?

What are the signs and symptoms of AML? So some of the signs and symptoms of acute myeloid leukemia, again, are wide ranging. Most commonly when patients are symptomatic, it's going to be related to what their blood looks like. A lot of patients have low hemoglobin or red blood cells, and that leads to a lot of fatigue and shortness of breath. We also look out for what we call B symptoms, so fevers, night sweats, unintentional weight loss. And then going back to the overproduction of these cancer cells in someone's bone marrow, sometimes that can lead to a lot of aches and pains, primarily in our back, hips, shoulders. And then another thing that acute myeloid leukemia can cause on presentation is bleeding. Most commonly it's what we call petechiae, which are like pinpoint red dots on someone's body. And also gum bleeding is one of the more common forms of bleeding that we see in a newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia patient. Unfortunately, the signs and symptoms of AML are very nonspecific. There's not a specific sign or symptom that would lead someone to say this is an acute myeloid leukemia. But generally people present with signs and symptoms of bone marrow failure. Now what that means is the bone marrow, the factory, is not able to produce the blood cells effectively. So many of these patients at diagnosis have significant anemia. When people are anemic, they're tired. They feel unable to do their normal activities. They may be more short of breath or tired when doing their normal even activities such as walking or going to the mailbox or going to work. Many of these patients at diagnosis have very low platelet counts and that can lead to bleeding. Sometimes people present with gum bleeding or nosebleeds. Even just brushing their teeth can lead to some bleeding and that could also be a sign that there is a bone marrow failure issue. And other patients present with infection because again the immune system is compromised from when patients are diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia so they may have immune dysfunction. Those are typically the ways people present and I will say also that there are sort of two different types of presentations. Some people present very rapidly whereby the bone marrow is rapidly making these cancer and these symptoms develop over days to even one or two weeks where someone felt well one week and the next week they're not able to get out of bed. That's a very acute sort of presentation. But in older patients in particular, the more common scenario is a relative subacute or gradual onset of symptoms that can develop over weeks to even one or two months where just over time people feel more and more tired, fatigued and sick and that prompts someone to go to a primary care doctor or an urgent care facility to get their blood checked which ultimately then leads to the diagnosis. So it's a bit nonspecific and we do see a variety of ways people present with this cancer. 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 forth 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, typically 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 physical exam and blood work which would show us some signs of concern that would lead to a workup and diagnose AML.