who are married and live together have a better prognosis. people who are treated at place with a higher volume of aml have a better prognosis than those who are treated at those in the lowest quartile. as with most forms of cancer, performance status (i.e. the general physical condition and activity level of the person) plays a major role in prognosis as well. epidemiology aml is a relatively rare cancer. there were 19,950 new cases in the united states in 2016. in 2018, aml accounted for 1.2% of all cancer deaths in the united states. the incidence of aml increases with age and varies between countries. the median age when aml is diagnosed ranges between 63 and 71 years in the uk, canada, australia and sweden, compared with 40 to 45 years in india, brazil and algeria. aml accounts for about 90% of all acute leukemias in adults, but is rare in children. the rate of therapy-related aml (aml caused by previous chemotherapy) is expected to rise with an increase in the use of chemotherapy, an ageing population and more patients surviving their initial chemotherapy treatment; therapy-related disease accounts for just under 10% of all cases of aml. aml is slightly more common in men, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.3:1 to 1.4:1. incidence is also seen to differ by ethnicity, with caucasians having higher recorded incidences and the lowest recorded incidences being in pacific islanders and native alaksans. in the uk, aml accounts for 31% of all leukemia cases, and around 3,100 people were diagnosed with the disease each year in 2016–2018. history alfred velpeau the first published description of a case of leukemia in medical literature dates to 1827 when french physician alfred-armand-louis-marie velpeau described a 63-year-old florist who developed an illness characterized by fever, weakness, urinary stones, and substantial enlargement of the liver and spleen. velpeau noted the blood of this person had a consistency "like gruel", and speculated the appearance of the blood was due to white corpuscles. in 1845, a series of people who died with enlarged spleens and changes in the "colors and consistencies of their blood" was reported by the edinburgh-based pathologist j.h. bennett; he used the term "leucocythemia" to describe this pathological condition. the term "leukemia" was coined by rudolf virchow, the renowned german pathologist, in 1856. as a pioneer in the use of the light microscope in pathology, virchow was the first to describe the abnormal excess of white blood cells in people with the clinical syndrome described by velpeau and bennett. as virchow was uncertain of the etiology of the white blood cell excess, he used the purely descriptive term "leukemia" (greek: "white blood") to refer to the condition. further advances in the understanding of aml occurred rapidly with the development of new technology. in 1877, paul ehrlich developed a technique of staining blood films which allowed him to describe in detail normal and abnormal white blood cells. wilhelm ebstein introduced the term "acute leukemia" in 1889 to differentiate rapidly progressive and fatal leukemias from the more indolent chronic leukemias. the term "myeloid" was coined by franz ernst christian neumann in 1869, as he was the first to recognize white blood cells were made in the bone marrow (greek: μυєλός, myelos, lit. '(bone) marrow') as opposed to the spleen. the technique of bone marrow examination to diagnose leukemia was first described in 1879 by mosler. finally, in 1900, the myeloblast, which is the malignant cell in aml, was characterized by otto naegeli, who divided the leukemias into myeloid and lymphocytic. in 2008, aml became the first cancer genome to be fully sequenced. dna extracted from leukemic cells were compared to unaffected skin. the leukemic cells contained acquired mutations in several genes that had not previously been associated with the disease.