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

PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well arsenic trioxide works in treating patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• Determine the safety and activity of arsenic trioxide in patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
• Determine the qualitative and quantitative toxic effects of this drug in these patients.

Secondary

• Determine the response, in terms of objective tumor response and response duration, in patients treated with this drug.
• Determine the patterns of failure and survival in patients treated with this drug.

OUTLINE: This is a pilot study.

Patients receive arsenic trioxide IV over 1-2 hours on days 1-5 of week 1 and on days 1 and 5 of weeks 2-8 (course 1 only). Beginning with course 2 and for all subsequent courses, patients receive arsenic trioxide on days 1 and 5 of weeks 1-8. Treatment repeats every 8 weeks for up to 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients achieving complete response (CR) receive 1 additional course of therapy beyond CR. Patients achieving CR due to local consolidative therapy (surgery or radiotherapy) receive 2 additional courses of therapy beyond CR.

Patients are followed for 1 month, every 3 months for 2 years, every 6 months for 3 years, and then annually thereafter.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 14-30 patients will be accrued for this study within 9-18 months.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), meeting criteria for 1 of the following:

  • Locally advanced disease not amenable to radiotherapy or surgery
  • Metastatic disease

• Received at least 1 course of platinum-based (e.g., cisplatin or carboplatin) chemotherapy

• No uncontrolled central nervous system (CNS) metastases

• Ineligible for higher priority treatment protocols

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 18 and over

Performance status

• Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) 0-1 OR
• Zubrod Scale 0-1 OR
• South West Oncology Group (SWOG) 0-1

Life expectancy

• At least 12 weeks

Hematopoietic

• Absolute neutrophil count greater than 1,500/mm^3
• Platelet count greater than 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic

• Bilirubin no greater than 1.5 times normal
• Serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT) and Serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) no greater than 3 times normal

Renal

• Creatinine no greater than 2.0 mg/dL
• Calcium no greater than 12 mg/dL

Cardiovascular

• No myocardial infarction within the past 6 months
• No uncontrolled, clinically significant dysrhythmia
• Cardiac ejection fraction greater than 50%

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• Electrolytes (including magnesium) normal
• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except nonmelanoma skin cancer or carcinoma in situ of the cervix
• No prior or ongoing peripheral neuropathy grade 2 or greater
• No other medical condition that would preclude study participation

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• No concurrent cytokine therapy

Chemotherapy

• See Disease Characteristics
• No more than 2 prior chemotherapy regimens for NSCLC
• No other concurrent chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• More than 2 weeks since prior radiotherapy

• No prior radiotherapy to an indicator lesion unless there is objective evidence of tumor growth in that lesion

• No concurrent radiotherapy

  • Concurrent palliative or emergent radiotherapy allowed

Surgery

• More than 2 weeks since prior surgery

Other

• At least 4 weeks since prior antineoplastic agents for non-malignant conditions (e.g., methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis)
• No concurrent antineoplastic agents for non-malignant conditions