RATIONALE: Collecting and storing samples of tissue from patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma to study in the laboratory may help the study of cancer in the future.

PURPOSE: This laboratory study is collecting and storing tissue samples from patients with relapsed or recurrent non-Hodgkin lymphoma after treatment on a Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES:

• Acquire fresh snap-frozen lymphoma tissue from patients with relapsed or recurrent non-Hodgkin lymphoma after treatment on a Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) clinical trial.
• Establish a standard set of procedures for routine acquisition, banking, and study of lymphoma tissues within the SWOG.
• Use repository tissue to establish clinical correlations via presently activated phenotyping studies and future projected molecular studies assessing specimen DNA and RNA status.
• Examine the biology of therapy failure in relationship to changes in pretreatment and post-treatment immunophenotypic data.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Tissues collected at biopsy are snap-frozen and archived for future molecular and genetic studies.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: Not specified

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of relapsed or recurrent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)

• Previously registered on 1 of the following SWOG clinical trials for previously untreated NHL:

  • SWOG-8410
  • SWOG-8503
  • SWOG-8508
  • SWOG-8516
  • SWOG-8736
  • SWOG-8809
  • SWOG-8907
  • SWOG-8954
  • SWOG-9125
  • SWOG-9240
  • SWOG-9320
  • SWOG-9349
  • SWOG-9432
  • SWOG-9501
  • SWOG-9703
  • SWOG-S9704
  • SWOG-9800

• Tissue samples of relapsed or recurrent disease available

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics

Patients who consented to SWOG 9245 for banking