Epigenetic Gene Mutations Impact on Outcome in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a heterogeneous clonal disorder arising in the myeloid lineage with an average age of around 62 years at diagnosis. Morphological and cytogenetic analysis has identified a number of sub-types with a wide range of survival outcomes. Some of the more favourable outcomes are associated with patients who harbour balanced reciprocal chromosomal translocations including the t(15;17) translocation resulting in a fusion gene between PML and RARα; this group of patients have acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) (Freireich et al., 2014). Over the past few years, next-generation sequencing has assisted in the identification of a spectrum of molecular mutations in many of the other sub-types of AML, particularly in those with an apparent normal karyotype.