This pilot research trial studies biomarkers in bone marrow samples from pediatric patients with high risk acute myeloid leukemia. Studying samples of bone marrow from patients with cancer in the laboratory may help doctors identify and learn more about biomarkers related to cancer.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To provide a detailed, molecular map of pediatric high risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

II. To identify mutations, expression profile, gene copy number, loss of heterozygosity (LOH) status and genomic methylation patterns in order to identify novel changes associated with pediatric AML.

III. To generate fibroblast cell lines in order to obtain germline nucleic acids from marrow specimens from AML patients with induction failure.

IV. To identify genomic alterations contributing to induction failure in childhood AML.

OUTLINE:

Banked bone marrow samples from diagnosis and remission are used to develop a detailed molecular map of pediatric high-risk acute myeloid leukemia. Analysis includes genome single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, expression, and methylation profiling.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia

  • High-risk disease

• Treated on COG-AAML03P1 or COG-AAML0531

• Meets the following criteria:

  • Initial remission with no known adverse risk factors
  • High quantity and quality of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) available
  • Highly enriched specimens with >= 50% blast available

Any patient with a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia meeting the other criteria.