Gemcitabine Plus Supportive Care in Treating Patients With Locally Advanced or Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

OBJECTIVES: * Compare quality of life, in terms of the degree of symptom palliation and improvements in performance status, of patients with locally advanced or metastatic poor prognosis non-small cell lung cancer treated with 2 schedules of gemcitabine combined with best supportive care. * Compare the toxicity of these regimens in these patients. * Compare the overall survival of patients treated with these regimens. * Compare the response rate in patients treated with these regimens. OUTLINE: This is a randomized, open-label, multicenter study. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes once a week for 3 weeks. Treatment continues every 4 weeks for 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. * Arm II: Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes once a week for 2 weeks. Treatment continues every 3 weeks for 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients on both arms also receive best supportive care. Additional courses of gemcitabine may be administered at the discretion of the investigator. Quality of life is assessed at baseline and then after each course of chemotherapy. Patients are followed every 2 months for survival. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 174 patients (87 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study.