Poor prognosis AML consists of 3 clinically definable groups of patients whose response to therapy is substantially worse than that of standard prognosis patients. The response rate is lowest for those patients who have more than a single risk factor and for the patients who have low platelet and serum albumin levels at diagnosis. The treatment associated mortality of the latter patients is quite high. Even if one avoids the high mortality rate by carefully selecting patients the likelihood that drug resistant disease is present is very high. Since the basis for resistance is multifactorial, a variety of strategies will have to be explored as means to improve treatment outcome. At the present time, the greatest chance for long term survival is found in relatively young patients whose AML is induced into complete remission and who then receive a matched allogeneic bone marrow transplant.