Diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia

Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a clonal, malignant disease of hematopoietic tissue characterized by accumulation of abnormal cells, mainly leukaemic blasts in bone marrow and impaired production of normal hematopoietic cells. Leukaemia was discovered in 1845, roughly at the same time by two doctors, Rudolph Virchow, a young Berlin pathologist and a Scottish pathologist, John Hughes Bennett. The term leukaemia was first used by Rudolph Virchow to describe the blood appearance of his female patient after she died. She was a 50year-old cook, admitted to hospital, complaining of fatigue, frequent nosebleeds and swelling of the legs and abdomen. They were the first who begun to understand what exactly goes wrong in this unusual disease. The aim of this chapter is to present a step by step approach in diagnosing acute myeloid leukaemia and also to identify potential diagnostic pitfalls.