Wednesday, February 19, 2014

French American British classification of Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia (AML types) mnemonic

It is not necessary to remember these for most exams, but knowing them gives us a sense of completeness and makes us feel confident. Important for exams or not, I hope this post helps you! :)

As you go from M0 to M7, the cell is getting more and more differentiated.
WBCs, RBCs and Platelets is the order (wrap!)

French American British classification of Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia (AML types) mnemonic
I call promyelocytic leukemia with it's nick name, Pro! :D
Pro has 3 alphabets and so it's M3.
Other 3 letter words you should be familiar with PRO are DIC and VIT.
Acute promyelocytic leukemia is associated with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC).
All trans retinoic acid (ATRA) helps in maturation and it is the only leukemia which can be treated with a vitamin so it's pretty cool and maybe that's why examiners would like to ask it!

Pro is associated with a translocation and it is the only one among these which is high yield.
ACUTE has 5 alphabets and MYELOID has 7 alphabets so just add 1 in front of the numbers and you know - Acute promyelocytic leukemia t(15;17)

Mono has a lot of big O's so mono is the big one, myelo (like a small kid, Milo, with one O) is the small one. So myelomonocytic has the small number, M4 and monocytic has the bigger number, M5.

I made this association to remember gum infiltration is seen in M5: You make big bubbles while chewing gum. They look like O's and big O's should remind you of Acute mOnOcytic leukemia.

Acute erythroid leukemia has precursors which may show coarse granular cytoplasmic positivity with the Periodic-acid-Schiff (PAS) stain.
RBC PAS: Six alphabets, hence M6? Pass me some RBCs ^__^

Platelet has 8 alphabets, the AML classification goes till M7 so you can remember that way too!
Platelets and fibrin will help you associate acute megakaryoblastic leukemia with myelofibrosis in the bone marrow.

For Auer rods, here's my tick to remember -
M0 and M1 (symbol mnemonic, see image) don't have rods.
I remember that mono is fat and it wouldn't like to have anything that pokes it inside (like a rod).
So anything with mono (M4 and M5) doesn't have rods.
RBCs and platelets (M6 and M7) don't have Auer rods.
That leaves M2 (mature) and M3 (Pro).. They have Auer rods!

That's all!

Pray that I do well in my exams.

-IkaN

30 comments:

  1. Thank youuuuuu
    Super helpful

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  2. OMG ahhhhh you saved my life thanks :D

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  3. You are a saviour !!
    I have my finals in 10 days and I've been memorising this classification forever
    Thank you ;D

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    Replies
    1. Hahahahha. Glad I made this!

      Same here with the exams!! Good luck to you :D

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  4. One more hurdle.. done and dusted by ikan's might.. :)
    Thanks.. and cheers

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  5. One more hurdle.. done and dusted by ikan's might.. :)
    Thanks.. and cheers

    ReplyDelete
  6. Seriously .... ! Unbelievably made easier.... thanxxxx dear!! For ur ur efforts thumbs up... can't thank u enuf:-)..

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  7. Thank you very much. This is excellent.

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  8. The blog is awesome.... enormously simplified version of that classification great job

    ReplyDelete
  9. Medicowesome is super AWESOME! Thanks so much!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you so much
    Best regards, from Indonesia

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  11. Great piece of work there, the trick is just awesome dude.... Keep it up

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  12. Awesome����

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  13. I mean seriously, I din't even know there was an easy way to memorize this thing.Wao.Thank you.

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  14. THANK YOU! Your little tricks to remembering are just great!!

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  15. thanks thanks for these simple ways to remember this classification

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  16. Hey that sounds great!!!! Amazingly enough to remember!

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  17. Only useful i found in this is to Remember M3 as PRO 3 letters
    Other is too confusing to remember

    ReplyDelete

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