Effect of time of admission to treatment initiation on outcomes of patients with acute myeloid leukemia: a tertiary care referral center experience

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the most common acute leukemia in adults in the United States.1 In 2018, the estimated annual incidence of AML is 19,520 (32.4% of all new leukemia cases), with 10,670 projected deaths (43.8% of all leukemia deaths).1 New molecularly targeted treatments are increasingly being used in treating AML, and some of them have shown improved health outcomes. In general, age, white blood cell (WBC) count at presentation, cytogenetics, and molecular characteristics are the major determinants of prognosis and treatment outcome. Studies analyzing the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database have also shown racial differences in outcomes.2 It is well known to the oncology community that patients with similar characteristics may respond differently to treatment and that outcome is not uniformly related to the well-defined clinical and laboratory characteristics. Issues related to health care disparities and access to health care are also known to affect the outcome in patients with cancer.3-9 AML is generally considered by the medical community as a time-sensitive condition. Treatment of patients with AML usually consists of induction chemotherapy followed by consolidation treatment