Guru Murthy, MD, MS

Every patient with AML needs comprehensive mutation testing at diagnosis and again at progression, yet even effective targeted and venetoclax-based regimens remain noncurative and carry cumulative toxicity.

Venetoclax combinations have become the backbone of AML therapy for older and unfit patients, but drug interactions, dose modifications, and prior hypomethylating agent exposure complicate real-world use.

Early transplant referral, MRD-guided sequencing, and a candid accounting of intensive chemotherapy's costs shape how clinicians move older and high-risk patients toward potential cure.

From intensive induction with targeted add-ons to lower-intensity venetoclax-based combinations, frontline AML therapy now branches by mutation, fitness, and the realistic prospect of cure without transplant.

Performance status, comorbidity indices, and geriatric assessment frame what a patient can tolerate, while insurance, health literacy, and caregiver support often determine what care is actually feasible.

Being able to tolerate intensive chemotherapy is not the same as benefiting from it. The panel weighs psychosocial realities and candid case outcomes in older patients with AML.

Separate risk systems now guide intensive and lower-intensity AML therapy, and objective fitness criteria are replacing the eyeball test in deciding which patients should receive which approach.

Acute myeloid leukemia arises from stem cell mutations and clonal expansion, and while diagnosis is rarely in doubt, genetic testing now shapes every treatment decision that follows.