RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of perifosine in treating patients who have locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the efficacy of perifosine, in terms of 6-month survival, in patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.
• Determine the safety and tolerability of this drug in these patients.
• Determine median survival time and the 1-year survival rate of patients treated with this drug.
• Determine the objective response rate (partial and complete), response duration, and time to progression in patients treated with this drug.
• Determine the toxicity of this drug in these patients.

OUTLINE: Patients receive oral perifosine daily for 3 weeks. Courses repeat every 4 weeks in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed every 3 months.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 17-37 patients will be accrued for this study within 15 months.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically or cytologically confirmed adenocarcinoma of the pancreas not amenable to curative local therapy

  • Metastatic OR locally advanced

• No known brain metastases

• No ascites that required therapeutic paracentesis on at least 2 occasions within the past 6 weeks

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 18 and over

Performance status

• ECOG 0-2 OR
• Karnofsky 60-100%

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• WBC at least 3,000/mm^3
• Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,500/mm^3
• Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic

• Bilirubin no greater than 2 times upper limit of normal (ULN)
• AST/ALT no greater than 2.5 times ULN (5 times ULN with liver metastases)

Renal

• Creatinine normal OR
• Creatinine clearance at least 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular

• No symptomatic congestive heart failure
• No unstable angina pectoris
• No cardiac arrhythmia

Gastrointestinal

• No gastrointestinal (GI) tract disease resulting in the inability to take oral medication or a requirement for IV alimentation
• No uncontrolled inflammatory bowel disease
• No active peptic ulcer disease

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• No prior allergic reactions attributed to compounds of similar chemical or biological composition to perifosine
• No other active malignant disease that could interfere with interpretation of study results
• No ongoing active infection
• No other uncontrolled concurrent illness
• No psychiatric illness or social situation that would preclude study compliance

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• Not specified

Chemotherapy

• No more than 1 prior chemotherapy regimen for metastatic or locally advanced disease

  • Prior chemotherapy, given as a radiosensitizer, allowed in addition to single-line therapy

• At least 3 weeks since prior chemotherapy (6 weeks for nitrosoureas or mitomycin) and recovered

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• At least 3 weeks since prior radiotherapy likely to have myelotoxic effects (more than 3,000 cGy to fields including substantial marrow) and recovered

Surgery

• No prior GI surgery affecting absorption

Other

• No concurrent antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive patients
• No other concurrent investigational agents
• No other concurrent anticancer agents or therapies