RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop cancer cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim and sargramostim may increase the number of immune cells found in bone marrow or peripheral blood and may help a person's immune system recover from the side effects of chemotherapy. It is not yet known whether combination chemotherapy is more effective followed by filgrastim or sargramostim in treating leukemia.

PURPOSE: Randomized phase II trial to compare the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy followed by filgrastim with that of combination chemotherapy followed by sargramostim in treating patients who have relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia or acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

OBJECTIVES:

• Compare amounts of dendritic cells and leukemia-associated antigen-specific T lymphocytes in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia or acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated with filgrastim (G-CSF) vs sargramostim (GM-CSF) after high-dose cytarabine and mitoxantrone.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized study.

All patients receive high-dose cytarabine IV over 1 hour twice daily on days 1-6 and mitoxantrone IV over 30 minutes on days 2-4. On day 6, patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

• Arm I: Patients receive filgrastim (G-CSF) subcutaneously (SC) daily until blood counts recover in the absence of unacceptable toxicity.
• Arm II: Patients receive sargramostim (GM-CSF) SC daily as in arm I.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 60 patients will be accrued for this study within 6 years.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia or acute lymphoblastic leukemia by morphology, cytochemical staining, and flow cytometry
• In first or subsequent relapse or refractory disease after at least 1 prior treatment regimen
• Antecedent hematologic disorders allowed except Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 15 and over

Performance status

• 0-3

Life expectancy

• At least 4 weeks

Hematopoietic

• Not specified

Hepatic

• Bilirubin no greater than 2 times normal*
• SGOT no greater than 2 times normal* NOTE: *Unless directly attributable to leukemia

Renal

• Creatinine no greater than 1.5 times normal* NOTE: *Unless directly attributable to leukemia

Cardiovascular

• Ejection fraction at least 45%* NOTE: *Unless directly attributable to leukemia

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• No other concurrent medical or psychiatric illness that would preclude study entry

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• Prior autologous or allogeneic bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation allowed
• Prior cytokines allowed

Chemotherapy

• Prior chemotherapy allowed

Endocrine therapy

• No concurrent corticosteroids except for treatment of severe vomiting that is refractory to standard agents

Radiotherapy

• Prior radiotherapy allowed

Surgery

• Not specified