Acute myeloid leukemia, subtype M2b (AML-M2b), was first identified in 1959 by Professor Chongli Yang at the Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS), based on clinical features, bone marrow morphology, and cytology. He termed it “subacute granulocytic leukemia.” In 1973, Rowley and colleagues abroad reported the same leukemia subtype through cytogenetic methods. By the late 1990s, the team led by Professor Jianxiang Wang demonstrated that the chromosomal translocation t(8;21) leads to rearrangement of the AML1 and ETO genes, producing the AML1-ETO (RUNX1::RUNX1T1) fusion gene—the molecular hallmark of AML-M2b. This marker has since been widely applied in differential diagnosis and minimal residual disease (MRD) monitoring.
