As one of the nation's largest cooperative cancer treatment groups, the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) is in a unique position to organize a Leukemia Tissue Bank. The member institutions diagnose hundreds of patients with leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome each year, and uniformly treat these patients with chemotherapy regimens. The Alliance offers centralized data management for the clinical history, the classification of the leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, cytogenetics, flow cytometric analysis, treatment and follow-up. The highly skilled health care providers at each member institution are familiar with obtaining informed consent, completing data questionnaires and shipping specimens. There currently exists a central processing facility where samples are prepared for a variety of cellular and molecular studies. Hence, the patient resources, the health care providers, and a processing facility for a Leukemia Tissue Bank are all in place. What is needed, however, and is addressed in the current protocol, is a formal mechanism to procure bone marrow, blood and normal tissue from patients with hematologic malignancies who are to be enrolled on Alliance (Cancer and Leukemia Group B [CALGB]) treatment studies.

The objective of the study is to collect and store specimens from every newly diagnosed patient with acute or chronic leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) who are entered on a CALGB protocol for previously untreated patients. Bone marrow aspirate and blood specimens are obtained from patients at diagnosis, remission, or relapse and stored. Buccal smears are obtained at diagnosis, and DNA is extracted and preserved.

It was anticipated that the specimens collected under this protocol would be used by a large number of investigators. This protocol does not describe the details of each approved project (eg, eligibility age range).

• Previously untreated patients on a CALGB treatment protocol for leukemia (acute or chronic) or myelodysplasia are eligible. Patients must be registered to CALGB 9665 prior to receiving any therapy for their disease.
• Signed informed consent

Patients diagnosed with leukemia or myelodysplasia.