DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of one of the following:

  • Infant leukemia
  • Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 3rd or greater remission or relapse
  • Undifferentiated or biphenotypic leukemia in 2nd or greater remission or relapse
  • Juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)
  • Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) in 3rd or greater remission or relapse
  • Primary advanced myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) excluding refractory anemia (RA) and RA with ringed sideroblasts
  • Therapy-related MDS of any stage or AML
  • CML in 2nd or greater chronic phase, accelerated, or blastic phase
  • Acute leukemia, CML, or MDS but unable to tolerate total body irradiation (TBI) due to potential neurotoxicity (prior TBI, prior local radiotherapy,or under 2 years of age)
• No active CNS disease
• Related or unrelated bone marrow donor matched at HLA-A, B, and DR beta 1

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• Under 60 (over 60 considered on case-by-case basis)

Performance status:

• Karnofsky 70-100%
• Lansky 70-100%

Life expectancy:

• Not specified

Hematopoietic:

• Not specified

Hepatic:

• AST and ALT less than 2 times upper limit of normal
• Bilirubin less than 1.5 mg/dL unless liver is involved with disease

Renal:

• Creatinine normal
• Creatinine clearance greater than 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• Asymptomatic with no prior risk factors OR
• LVEF greater than 50% if symptomatic

Pulmonary:

• Asymptomatic with no prior risk factors OR
• Diffusion capacity greater than 50% predicted (corrected for hemoglobin) if symptomatic

Other:

• No active uncontrolled viral, bacterial, or fungal infection
• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• HIV negative

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• More than 6 months since prior allogeneic or autologous stem cell transplantation

Chemotherapy:

• Not specified

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• See Disease Characteristics

Surgery:

• Not specified