RATIONALE: A screening test, such as My Profile Pediatric Assay, may help doctors predict a patient's risk of relapse and plan better treatment for acute myeloid leukemia.

PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying using the My Profile Pediatric Assay to see how well it works in predicting risk of relapse in bone marrow cell samples from younger patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• To validate the accuracy of the My Profile Pediatric Assay to predict risk of relapse in pediatric patients with non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who responded to cytarabine-based induction chemotherapy.

Secondary

• To validate the continuous score from the pre-specified classifier as a predictor of relapse after response to induction chemotherapy, while controlling for the simultaneous effects of the following clinical and laboratory variables: age, WBC, ethnicity, cytogenetics, Flt3-ITD, NPM1, MRD, and bone marrow (BM) donor availability.
• To validate the accuracy of the prespecified low versus high relapse indicator variable (I_L/H) as a predictor of relapse after induction therapy.
• To validate the accuracy of the prespecified I_L/H as a predictor of relapse after induction therapy, while controlling for the simultaneous effects of the following clinical and laboratory variables: MRD, age, WBC, ethnicity, cytogenetics, Flt3-ITD, NPM1, and BM donor availability.

OUTLINE: Archived bone marrow mononuclear cells are analyzed by single cell network profile assay, the My Profile™ AML Risk of Relapse Assay. Molecular markers analyzed include Flt3-ITD, NPM1, and MRA. Results are then correlated with each patient's clinical data including patient's age, race/ethnic background, gender, treatment received, and outcomes.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Patients with confirmed non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia

  • Treated on COG-AAML03P1 or COG- AAML0531 protocols

    • Samples from COG-AAML0531 can come from either treatment arm, but these samples need to be independent from any patients who donated samples assayed in study COG-AAML11B2

  • Patients with Down syndrome are excluded

• Cryopreserved bone marrow mononuclear cell (BMMC) samples collected at diagnosis, prior to start induction therapy

  • Samples must have been cryopreserved at central lab within 3 days of draw at clinical site
  • Target of 10 X 10^6 cells frozen

• Patients' clinical annotations required after unblinding

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• See Disease Characteristics

Patients with confirmed non-M3 acute myeloid leukemia treated on COG-AAML03P1 or COG-AAML0531 protocols