DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of 1 of the following high-risk myeloid leukemias:

  • Accelerated phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)
  • Blastic phase CML
  • Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) beyond first remission
  • Primary refractory AML

  • Acute leukemia arising in a patient with an prior diagnosis of a myelodysplastic or myeloproliferative syndrome (including chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, CML, polycythemia vera, essential thrombocytosis, and agnogenic myeloid metaplasia with myelofibrosis)

    • Any stage disease
• Undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation
• Patient and donor must be HLA-A2 positive
• Able and willing to provide blood and bone marrow samples for study
• Highest-risk disease group: More than 5% blasts detected in bone marrow or peripheral blood just prior to or at time of transplantation

• Relapsed-disease group: One of the following types of relapsed disease after transplantation:

  • Morphologic relapse defined as at least 1 of the following:

    • Abnormal peripheral blasts in absence of growth factor therapy
    • Abnormal bone marrow blasts more than 5% of nucleated cells
    • Extramedullary chloroma or granulocytic sarcoma

  • Flow cytometric relapse

    • Cells with abnormal immunophenotype in the peripheral blood or bone marrow by flow cytometry and consistent with leukemia relapse or progression

  • Cytogenetic relapse or progression defined by ≥ 1 of the following:

    • Appearance in ≥ 1 more metaphases from bone marrow or peripheral blood cells of either a nonconstitutional cytogenetic abnormality identified in at least 1 cytogenetic study performed prior to transplant or a new abnormality known to be associated with leukemia
    • Increase in the number of Philadelphia chromosome-positive metaphases from bone marrow or peripheral blood between 2 consecutive samples after engraftment in patients with CML
    • Increase in the percentage of bcr/abl+ cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization between 2 consecutive samples after engraftment

  • Molecular relapse or progression

    • Polymerase chain reaction assay of bone marrow or peripheral blood mononuclear cells positive for the presence of the bcr/abl mRNA fusion transcript that quantitatively increases by greater than 1 order of magnitude on a subsequent sample

• No grade III or IV graft-versus-host disease unresponsive to therapy or requiring treatment with any of the following:

  • Anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody
  • Prednisone (or equivalent) more than 0.5 mg/kg/day
  • Other treatments resulting in the ablation or inactivation of T cells (e.g., anti-T-cell monoclonal antibodies)
• No graft rejection or failure

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 75 and under

Performance status

• Karnofsky 40-100% OR
• Lansky 40-100%

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• See Disease Characteristics

Hepatic

• Not specified

Renal

• Not specified

Other

• No grade 3 or 4 nonhematopoietic organ toxicity

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• See Disease Characteristics

Chemotherapy

• No concurrent hydroxyurea

Endocrine therapy

• See Disease Characteristics

• Concurrent immunosuppressive therapy for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) allowed if 1 of the following:

  • Corticosteroid dose can be tapered to no more than 0.5 mg/kg/day without an increase to grade III or IV acute GVHD or progression of chronic GVHD

Radiotherapy

• Not specified

Surgery

• Not specified

Other

• No concurrent agents that may interfere with function or survival of infused cytotoxic T-lymphocyte clones