Leukemia

Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Signs and Symptoms
Diagnosis
Treatment

Diagnosis

First, your doctor will perform a physical examination and look for swelling in the liver, spleen, groin, neck and lymph nodes under your arm. Your doctor will order a CBC test, which is a complete blood count that measure the amount of white and red blood cells and platelets in your blood. In addition, a sample of your blood is examined under a microscope to see what the cells look like and to determine the number of mature cells and leukemia cells, called blasts. Although blood tests may reveal that a patient has leukemia, they do not always indicate the type of leukemia.

In order to further check for leukemia cells or to identify what type of leukemia a patient has, a hematologist (blood disorder specialist) or oncologist (cancer specialist) performs a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy. During this procedure, the doctor inserts a needle into a large bone (usually the hip) and removes a small amount of liquid bone marrow (aspiration) and a piece of the spongy tissue inside the bone (biopsy). The procedure takes about 20 minutes. Once the biopsy and aspiration are obtained the hematologist, oncologist or pathologist examines the samples under the microscope.

Additional studies such as peroxi-dase stains and/or immunophenotyping may be necessary to confirm the diagnosis and reveal the exact acute myeloid leukemia (AML) subtype. In addition, a small amount of the liquid bone marrow is sent for a special chromosome test called cytogenetics, which can sometimes reveal important information regarding treatment and prognosis.

Reviewed by health care specialists at UCSF Medical Center.
Last updated July 31, 2008