BACKGROUND Treatment of acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) has evolved over the past several decades. Therefore, currently available estimates of long-term survival, which are based on survival for patients treated with potentially now obsolete protocols, may not pertain to patients currently diagnosed. METHODS Using data from the 1973-2005 database of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, we empirically validated a novel model-based method to project 5- and 10-year relative survival of AML patients and we applied the method to project relative survival of AML patients in the United States diagnosed during 2006-2010. RESULTS Empirical evaluation indicated that the modeling approach provides more accurate estimates of currently diagnosed patients than standard methods of survival analysis, such as cohort analysis or period analysis, in the majority of cases. Projected figures for 2006-2010 show 5- and 10-year relative survival estimates of 21.4% and 18.7% for all ages combined, 62.2% and 57.4% for ages 25-34, and 60.6% and 58.1% for ages 35-44. These estimates are substantially higher than the most up-to-date estimates obtained by standard survival analysis. CONCLUSIONS Patients diagnosed with AML during 2006-2010 at younger ages have much higher long-term survival expectations than indicated by previously available survival statistics.