RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of gemcitabine in treating children who have relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia or acute myelogenous leukemia.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the response rate in children with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia or acute myelogenous leukemia treated with gemcitabine.
• Assess the toxicity of this regimen in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to disease histology (acute lymphoblastic leukemia vs acute myelogenous leukemia).

Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 6 hours weekly for 3 weeks. Treatment repeats every 4 weeks for a maximum of 2 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: Approximately 10-20 patients will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia or acute myelogenous leukemia

  • M3 marrow (at least 25% blasts in bone marrow aspirate)
  • Refractory to conventional therapy

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 21 and under at diagnosis

Performance status:

• ECOG 0-2 OR
• Zubrod 0-2

Life expectancy:

• At least 2 months

Hematopoietic:

• Not specified

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin normal
• SGOT or SGPT no greater than 2.5 times upper limit of normal

Renal:

• Creatinine normal OR
• Creatinine clearance or radioisotope glomerular filtration rate at least 70 mL/min

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• No concurrent immunomodulating agents

Chemotherapy:

• At least 2 weeks since prior chemotherapy
• No other concurrent chemotherapy for cancer

Endocrine therapy:

• No concurrent corticosteroids except for treatment of adrenal crises with suppressed pituitary/adrenal response
• Concurrent low-dose hydrocortisone (less than 100 mg/m2) allowed for allergic reactions to amphotericin or transfusions

Radiotherapy:

• Concurrent radiotherapy to localized painful lesions allowed

Surgery:

• Not specified

Other:

• Recovered from any prior therapy