Inclusion Criteria:

* Patients must be newly diagnosed with de novo acute myelogenous leukemia
* Patients with previously untreated primary AML who meet the customary criteria for AML with \>= 20% bone marrow blasts as set out in the 2008 World Health Organization (WHO) Myeloid Neoplasm Classification are eligible

* Attempts to obtain bone marrow either by aspirate or biopsy must be made unless clinically prohibitive; in cases where it is clinically prohibitive, peripheral blood with an excess of 20% blasts and in which adequate flow cytometric and cytogenetics/fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) testing is feasible can be substituted for the marrow exam at diagnosis
* Patients with \< 20% bone marrow blasts are eligible if they have:

* A karyotypic abnormality characteristic of de novo AML (t(8;21)(q22;q22), inv(16)(p13q22) or t(16;16)(p13;q22) or 11q23 abnormalities
* The unequivocal presence of megakaryoblasts, or
* Biopsy proven isolated myeloid sarcoma (myeloblastoma; chloroma, including leukemia cutis)
* Patients with any performance status are eligible for enrollment
* Prior therapy with hydroxyurea, all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA), corticosteroids (any route), and IT cytarabine given at diagnosis is allowed; hydroxyurea and ATRA must be discontinued prior to initiation of protocol therapy; patients who have previously received any other chemotherapy, radiation therapy or any other antileukemic therapy are not eligible for this protocol

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients with any of the following constitutional conditions are not eligible:

* Fanconi anemia
* Shwachman syndrome
* Any other known bone marrow failure syndrome
* Patients with constitutional trisomy 21 or with constitutional mosaicism of trisomy 21 Note: enrollment may occur pending results of clinically indicated studies to exclude these conditions
* Patients with any of the following oncologic diagnoses are not eligible:

* Any concurrent malignancy
* Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML)
* Philadelphia chromosome positive AML
* Biphenotypic or bilineal acute leukemia
* Acute promyelocytic leukemia
* Acute myeloid leukemia arising from myelodysplasia
* Therapy-related myeloid neoplasms Note: enrollment may occur pending results of clinically indicated studies to exclude these conditions
* Pregnancy and breast feeding
* Female patients who are pregnant are ineligible
* Lactating females are not eligible unless they have agreed not to breastfeed their infants
* Female patients of childbearing potential are not eligible unless a negative pregnancy test result has been obtained
* Sexually active patients of reproductive potential are not eligible unless they have agreed to use an effective contraceptive method for the duration of their study participation