Diagnosis of AML Complete blood count (CBC) and peripheral blood smear Bone marrow examination Histochemical studies, cytogenetics, immunophenotyping, and molecular biology studies A diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia is made when myeloid blast cells are ≥ 20% of marrow nucleated cells or ≥ 20% of nonerythroid cells when the erythroid component is > 50%, or at any blast percentage in the presence of recurrent cytogenetic abnormalities [t (8; 21), t (15; 17), inv (16) or t (16; 16)].