Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, revealed last Saturday that she has been diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer known as acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Specifically, she has AML with inversion 3 — a genetic abnormality found in less than 2% of AML cases.

Schlossberg, 35, a journalist, shared that despite a year of intense treatment, doctors have told her she has less than a year to live.

The inversion 3 abnormality occurs when a segment of chromosome 3 flips within the chromosome. This mutation disrupts normal blood cell development, causing the rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that crowd out healthy ones in the bone marrow. Patients with this subtype typically face a more aggressive disease course and poorer outcomes than those with other forms of AML.

"I would say acute myeloid leukemia with inversion 3 is one of the ones that most of us who manage leukemia look at as probably one of the most aggressive mutations," says Dr. Clark Alsfeld, a hematology oncologist with Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center in New Orleans. "It's very, very challenging to get to remission, long-term prognosis is unfortunately very short, and survival rates are much less than we see with other types of acute myeloid leukemia," Alsfeld told NPR.

Experts say little is known about what causes this form of leukemia or who is most at risk. Schlossberg said she was diagnosed shortly after giving birth to her daughter in May 2024, despite feeling healthy and having no symptoms.

Schlossberg's treatment has been extensive. She has undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy, two bone marrow transplants, and has participated in two clinical trials.

In addition to fighting cancer, she developed a severe case of Epstein-Barr virus last September that “blasted my kidneys,” she wrote in an essay titled “A Battle With My Blood” in The New Yorker. Schlossberg is the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg.