Combination Chemotherapy in Treating Patients With Recurrent or Refractory Leukemia or Lymphoma

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop cancer cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more cancer cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining cytarabine and mitoxantrone in treating patients who have recurrent or refractory leukemia or lymphoma.

OBJECTIVES:

* Determine non-hematologic toxic effects of high-dose cytarabine and high-dose mitoxantrone in patients with recurrent or refractory leukemia or lymphoma.
* Determine the in vitro T/NK lymphocyte proliferative responses to patient's leukemia/lymphoma cells before and after treatment with this regimen.

OUTLINE: Patients receive high-dose cytarabine IV over 1 hour on days 1-5 and high-dose mitoxantrone IV over 15-30 minutes on day 5. Patients also receive sargramostim (GM-CSF) subcutaneously beginning on day 14 and continuing until blood counts recover.

Patients who achieve at least stable disease or a response may receive a second course beginning at least 14 days after the first course is completed.

Patients are followed for 3 months.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 20-30 patients will be accrued for this study within approximately 2-3 years.

Eligibility Criteria:
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

* One of the following must be present:

  * Histologically confirmed acute myeloid leukemia or acute lymphoblastic leukemia

    * More than 5% blasts in the bone marrow or peripheral blood unrelated to recovery of normal hematopoiesis from prior chemotherapy
    * Failed at least 1 attempt at induction chemotherapy
  * Diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or Hodgkin's lymphoma

    * Refractory or relapsed after at least 1 regimen of standard chemotherapy
  * Diagnosis of chronic myelogenous leukemia in accelerated phase or blast crisis

    * Received at least 1 myelotoxic chemotherapy regimen
* Active CNS involvement allowed

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

* 55 and under

Performance status

* ECOG 0-2

Life expectancy

* At least 5 weeks

Hematopoietic

* Lymphoma patients:

  * WBC at least 2,000/mm\^3\*
  * Platelet count at least 20,000/mm\^3\* NOTE: \*Unless due to bone marrow involvement or disease process

Hepatic

* Bilirubin no greater than 3 times normal\*
* AST/ALT no greater than 3 times normal\*
* Alkaline phosphatase no greater than 3 times normal\*
* No severe liver failure NOTE: \*Unless related to leukemia

Renal

* Creatinine clearance greater than 50 mL/min
* No severe renal failure

Cardiovascular

* LVEF at least 45% by MUGA

Pulmonary

* DLCO at least 60% of predicted

Other

* HIV negative
* Not pregnant or nursing
* Negative pregnancy test
* Fertile patients must use effective contraception
* No psychiatric illness that would preclude informed consent
* No medical illness or other condition that would preclude study participation

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

* Not specified

Chemotherapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* At least 24 hours since prior hydroxyurea
* At least 1 week since other prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

* Not specified

Radiotherapy

* Not specified

Surgery

* Not specified

Other

* Recovered from prior therapy