RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, ifosfamide, and paclitaxel, use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug and giving drugs in different ways may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well combination chemotherapy works in treating patients with metastatic urinary tract cancer that cannot be treated with surgery.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the efficacy of cisplatin, ifosfamide, and paclitaxel in patients with unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer (nontransitional cell histologies).

OUTLINE: Patients receive paclitaxel IV over 3 hours and cisplatin IV over 1 hour on day 1 and ifosfamide IV over 1 hour on days 1-3. Filgrastim (G-CSF) is administered subcutaneously daily beginning on day 6 and continuing through day 17 or until blood counts recover. Treatment continues every 3 weeks for a maximum of 6 courses in the absence of stable or progressive disease after completion of course 2 or complete response after completion of course 4.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 40 patients will be accrued for this study within 2 years.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically proven unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer

  • No transitional cell histologies

• Bidimensionally measurable disease

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 18 and over

Performance status:

• Karnofsky 60-100%

Hematopoietic:

• WBC at least 3,500/mm^3
• Platelet count greater than 150,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin less than 2.0 mg/dL

Renal:

• Creatinine less than 1.5 mg/dL OR
• Creatinine clearance greater than 55 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• No New York Heart Association class III or IV heart disease

Other:

• No other concurrent malignancy except basal cell skin cancer

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• Not specified

Chemotherapy

• No prior systemic chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• At least 3 weeks since prior radiotherapy

Surgery

• Not specified