LY231514 Plus Gemcitabine in Treating Women With Metastatic Breast Cancer

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 LY231514 plus gemcitabine in treating women who have metastatic breast cancer.

OBJECTIVES: * Assess the antitumor activity of pemetrexed disodium in combination with gemcitabine in the treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer who have received an anthracycline and a taxane in the adjuvant and/or metastatic setting and no more than 1 chemotherapy regimen for metastatic disease (unless these were a taxane and anthracycline). * Determine the toxicity of this regimen in this patient population. * Determine time to progression and overall survival of these patients receiving this regimen. OUTLINE: Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes on days 1 and 8. pemetrexed disodium IV is administered over 10 minutes 90 minutes following gemcitabine on day 8. Treatment continues every 21 days for a minimum of 6 courses in the absence of unacceptable toxicity or disease progression. Patients achieving a complete response receive 2 additional courses. Patients are followed every 3 months for 5 years. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 60 patients will be accrued for this study within 1 year.