AML cases are climbing among Indians in their 30s and 40s, yet most go untreated due to delayed diagnosis and high costs.
In Delhi’s busy clinics, doctors are seeing a shift in the profile of Acute Myeloid Leukemia patients. Once a disease of older adults, AML now turns up in people in their 30s and 40s. Each year the capital records nearly 3,000 new cases, but only about 30 per cent of those patients complete the full course of treatment.
According to an ET report, early symptoms of AML—fatigue, fever, repeated infections—often mimic common illnesses. Patients visit primary care centres, receive treatment for infection, and return home. Weeks pass before a routine blood test reveals blasts in the bloodstream. By then, the disease may have spread to the bone marrow and other organs. “We lose critical time because AML is detected late in our country,” said Dr Ranjit Sahoo of AIIMS. “It often masquerades as infection. By the time the right tests are done, treatment options are limited.”
AML is aggressive and moves fast. Without prompt intervention, survival drops. The standard treatment is chemotherapy, which kills rapidly dividing cells but damages healthy tissue. For many young adults, life takes a sudden turn from work and family to hospital wards and transfusions.
In recent years, research has led to targeted therapies that attack specific mutations in AML cells. These drugs have cleared the way for new remission rates and lower side effects. Yet in India, these options remain in private hospitals and are priced beyond most families. Public insurance schemes do not cover these drugs, and neither the National Cancer Drug Registry nor Ayushman Bharat lists them.
Dr Dharma Chaudhary of BLK Super Speciality Hospital pointed to gaps in public hospitals. “Even though Delhi has a range of centres, we don’t have a model that unites diagnosis, treatment and follow-up,” he said. “A patient’s outcome depends on which hospital they go to, whether they have insurance, and how early they are referred to a centre.”
Cost stands in the way for many. An AML treatment cycle can cross several lakhs of rupees, including hospital stay, drugs, transfusions and supportive care. With two or three cycles needed, the financial toll drives families to take on debt or stop treatment midway.
Experts call for urgent reforms. They urge the government to treat AML as a public health priority, expand access to molecular diagnostics in district hospitals, and include targeted therapies in public insurance schemes. They suggest standardizing diagnostic workflows across all centres and training physicians in early detection.
“Early detection, insurance reforms and access to innovation must go hand in hand if we are to reverse the tide,” one panelist said. Strategic steps now can save lives and spare families from ruin. Without action, AML will continue to claim young adults who might otherwise have years of health and work ahead of them. A system that equips every clinic to spot abnormal blood counts and every hospital to cover the cost of new therapies could turn the tide on this once rare leukemia.
