 During the last decade, prognosis in acute myelogenous leukemia AML in childhood has improved considerably, but still 30 of the children experience a relapse of disease and further 10 fail to respond sufficiently to the present therapies. A further intensification of therapy might improve the overall survival of these children, but possible, implicit side effects have to be considered carefully. Increase in dose intensification of the proven, effective anthracyclines will be limited by the risk of cumulative cardiotoxicity. A liposomal formulation of daunorubicin may offer a possibility to increase dosage, at least partially, without causing cumulative cardiotoxicity. Objective one of this randomised study is to ascertain if this dose increase improves therapy response and overall survival at acceptable toxicity. The previous experiences with liposomal daunorubicin, gathered from the relapse studies AML-BFM Rez 97 and International Therapy Study Relapsed AML 2001012 as well as from the pilot study AML-BFM 2002P, have shown that the induction therapy is feasible in clinical centers with experience in AML therapy without leading to a marked increase of toxicity or prolongation of granulocytopenia. 