RATIONALE: Giving donor natural killer cells to patients who have undergone donor bone marrow transplant may make the transplant work better and keep cancer cells from coming back.

PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of donor natural kill cells in preventing relapse or graft failure in patients who have undergone donor bone marrow transplant.

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• To ascertain the safety of donor natural killer (NK) cells, generated from peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cells, when given as a single intravenous infusion in patients who have undergone HLA-haploidentical familial donor bone marrow transplantation (BMT).
• To determine the maximum tolerated dose of donor NK cells when given as a single infusion.

Secondary

• To determine the effectiveness of donor NK cell infusion in preventing tumor relapse and graft failure after HLA-haploidentical familial donor BMT.

OUTLINE: Patients receive donor natural killer cells as a single infusion over 1 hour.

Cohorts of 3-6 patients receive escalating doses of natural killer cells until the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) is determined. The MTD is defined as the dose at which 2 of 3 or 3 of 6 patients experience grade III toxicities or acute graft-vs-host disease.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Has undergone HLA-haploidentical familial donor bone marrow transplantation within the past 4-6 weeks
• No manifestations of acute graft-vs-host disease at the time of planned donor natural killer cell infusion

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Karnofsky performance status 70-100%
• Bilirubin < 2.0 mg/dL
• AST < 3 times upper limit of normal
• Creatinine < 2.0 mg/dL
• Ejection fraction > 40% on MUGA scan

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics