In vitro Studies

This chapter describes human normal and abnormal (i.e., so-called leukaemia) haematopoiesis, the latter being a severe cancer of the blood. It analyses the process of haematopoiesis – normal and abnormal – as well as the bone marrow (BM) architecture and the cell cycle procedure. Moreover, the chapter discusses current experimental platforms for studying leukaemia ex vivo and parameters that have to be taken into consideration when designing a treatment protocol (i.e., chemotherapy). A first step towards understanding and optimising chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) treatment is the conduction of in vitro studies that aim at the reproduction of the in vivo environment. A variety of chemotherapy drugs are generally used, depending on the type of leukaemia. The most commonly used drugs for treatment of leukaemia are cytarabine (cytosine arabinose [ara-C]), and the anthracycline drugs.