A method for treating acute
myeloid leukemia (AML), such as poor risk AML, by administering to a subject in need thereof an effective amount of a mitochondrial activity inhibitor, for example a classA
electron transport chain (ETC) complex I inhibitor such as Mubritinib or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, is disclosed. The AML to be treated may be characterized by certain features, such as high level of expression of one or more
Homeobox (HOX)-network genes, high and / or low expression of specific genes, the presence of one or more cytogenetic or molecular risk factors such as intermediate cytogenetic risk, normal
karyotype (NK), mutated NPM1, mutated CEBPA, mutated FLT3, mutated DNMT3A, mutated TET2, mutated IDH1, mutated IDH2, mutated RUNX1, mutated WT1, mutated SRSF2, intermediate cytogenetic risk with abnormal
karyotype (intern(abnK)),
trisomy 8 (+8) and / or abnormal
chromosome (5 / 7), and / or a high leukemic
stem cell (LSC) frequency.