Combination Chemotherapy in Treating Women With Breast Cancer That is Metastatic or Cannot be Treated With Surgery

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 combination chemotherapy in treating women who have breast cancer that is metastatic or cannot be treated with surgery.

OBJECTIVES: * Determine the response rate in women with locally unresectable or metastatic breast cancer treated with docetaxel, leucovorin calcium, and fluorouracil as second or third-line chemotherapy. * Evaluate the toxic effects of this regimen in these patients. * Determine the time to progression in patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients receive docetaxel IV over 1 hour on day 1 and leucovorin calcium IV over 1 hour followed by fluorouracil IV over 5 minutes on days 1-3. Treatment repeats every 4 weeks for 2-8 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients are followed every 3 months. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 21-45 patients will be accrued for this study within 44 months.