RATIONALE: Collecting and storing samples of blood and bone marrow from patients with cancer to study in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about diagnosing cancer and determine a patient's eligibility for a treatment clinical trial. It may also help the study of cancer in the future.

PURPOSE: This laboratory study is collecting tissue samples from patients with leukemia or other blood disorders who are planning to enroll in an ECOG leukemia treatment clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES:

• To provide a mechanism for sample collection and submission for diagnostic review to determine eligibility of patients with suspected leukemia or related hematologic disorders for enrollment on ECOG leukemia clinical trials.
• To obtain baseline samples for correlative studies outlined in parent clinical trials.

OUTLINE: This is a cohort, multicenter study.

Patients submit bone marrow and/or blood samples. The samples are studied to determine patients' eligibility for ECOG leukemia treatment clinical trials. Samples may be stored for future correlative studies related to ECOG treatment clinical trials.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Candidate for enrollment on an ECOG treatment clinical trial for acute or chronic leukemia

  • Suspected clinical diagnosis and protocol ID number of the treatment clinical trial under consideration must be submitted to ECOG's Leukemia Translational Studies Laboratory to ensure that the required antibody panels are used and functional assays are performed

• Chosen ECOG treatment clinical trial must be active and accruing

  • Patient must not have begun treatment on the ECOG treatment clinical trial

• Patient may be concurrently enrolled on this laboratory study and a treatment clinical trial if immediate treatment is medically necessary

  • If subsequent diagnostic review alters the original diagnosis, the patient will be removed from the treatment clinical trial

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics

Potential candidates for ECOG-ACRIN Leukemia Trials