FLT3 and acute myeloid leukemia: Approximately 70% of newly diagnosed AML cases are characterized by expression of FLT3, and ~30% of patients exhibit activating mutations of the receptor (i.e. internal tandem duplications in the juxtamembrane domain (FLT3-ITD) found in approximately 25% patients and point mutations in the activation loop of the tyrosine kinase domain (FLT3-TKD) in an additional 7% of cases) [6–8].