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

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining cisplatin, paclitaxel, and gemcitabine in treating patients who have progressive unresectable regional or metastatic bladder cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the efficacy and toxicity of cisplatin, paclitaxel, and gemcitabine in patients with progressive unresectable regional or metastatic transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder.
• Determine the progression free survival of these patients treated with this regimen.

OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes on days 1 and 8, and cisplatin IV over 1 hour and paclitaxel IV over 3 hours on day 1. Treatment repeats every 3 weeks for 6 courses.

Patients are followed every 3 months until disease progression.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 39 patients will be accrued for this study within 18 months.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically proven progressive unresectable regional or metastatic transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder

• Measurable disease by CT or MRI scan

  • Greater than 10 mm

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 18 to 75

Performance status:

• WHO 0-2

Life expectancy:

• At least 3 months

Hematopoietic:

• Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,500/mm^3
• Platelet count at least 150,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

• Not specified

Renal:

• Creatinine less than 1.36 mg/dL

Cardiovascular:

• No uncontrolled cardiac disease
• No severe cardiac arrhythmias

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• No other prior malignancy except curatively treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer or carcinoma in situ of the cervix

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• Prior intravesical immunotherapy for superficial disease allowed
• No prior systemic biologic response modifier therapy for advanced disease

Chemotherapy:

• Prior intravesical chemotherapy for superficial disease allowed
• No prior systemic chemotherapy for advanced disease

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• Prior radiotherapy allowed

Surgery:

• No prior surgery