Collecting and Storing Blood, Bone Marrow, and Other Samples From Patients With Acute Leukemia, Chronic Leukemia, or Myelodysplastic Syndromes

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.