RATIONALE: Studying samples of bone marrow from patients with cancer in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer.

PURPOSE: This research study is looking at biomarker expression in bone marrow samples from patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

OBJECTIVES:

• Estimate the distributions of topoisomerase 2 (TOP2) expression and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
• Estimate the distributions of mutations in TOP2 phosphorylation sites (by SNP analysis) in these patients.
• Investigate whether expression of TOP2 or mutations in TOP2 phosphorylation sites vary with patient or disease characteristics in these patients.
• Test whether TOP2 expression correlates with complete remission rates, relapse-free survival, and overall survival of these patients.
• Conduct preliminary analyses to estimate the distributions of TOP2 expression and mutations in TOP2 phosphorylation sites (by SNP analysis) in patients with relapsed and/or refractory AML.
• Investigate whether expression of TOP2 and mutations in TOP2 phosphorylation sites vary with patient or disease characteristics in patients with relapsed and/or refractory AML.
• Test whether TOP2 expression and mutations in TOP2 phosphorylation sites differ between previously untreated and relapsed/refractory AML patients.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Archived RNA specimens are analyzed for topoisomerase 2 transcriptional expression by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and for mutations within TOP2 phosphorylation sites by single nucleotide polymorphism analysis.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia

  • All subtypes allowed (except acute promyelocytic leukemia [M3])
  • Previously untreated OR relapsed/refractory disease

• Isolated RNA specimens from bone marrow aspirate samples available from patients who participated on SWOG-9031, SWOG-9333 (cytarabine/daunorubicin hydrochloride induction arm only), SWOG-9500, or SWOG-9126

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics

patients enrolled on S0931, S9126, S9333 or S9500 consenting to use of specimens for future research