RATIONALE: Collecting and storing samples of tissue and blood from patients with cancer to study in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that may occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer.

PURPOSE: This laboratory study is looking at changes in the DNA of tissue samples that were collected from patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

OBJECTIVES:

• Validate, on the larger number of patients with karyotypically normal acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated uniformly on CALGB-19808, preliminary results from CALGB-9621 showing that BAALC and ERG overexpression and microarray gene-expression signatures can stratify the patients prognostically.
• Establish whether microRNAs are differentially expressed in subsets of patients with AML and normal cytogenetics, and, if so, attempt to identify a signature that stratifies patients prognostically.
• Explore the relative contribution in predicting clinical outcome of patients with cytogenetically normal AML using genetic markers such as BAALC, ERG, and EVI1 overexpression, MLL partial tandem duplication, FLT3 internal tandem duplication, NPM1 and CEBPA mutations, and microarray gene expression microRNA signatures.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter, pilot study.

Peripheral blood and bone marrow samples are analyzed to assess gene expression using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or reverse transcriptase-PCR assays and microarray assays. Genes to be studied include BAALC, ERB, EVI1, MLL, FLT3, NPM1, and CEBPA.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 100 patients will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia

  • Normal karyotype

• Bone marrow and/or peripheral blood samples from patients treated on CALGB-19808 and registered on CALGB-9665 required

  • No additional samples required

Patients enrolled on CALGB 19808 with tissue previously submitted to the CALGB Leukemia Tissue Bank