Tipifarnib, Gemcitabine, and Cisplatin in Treating Patients With Stage III or Stage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. To describe the response rate in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving combination therapy with R115777, gemcitabine, and cisplatin. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. To estimate the time to event efficacy variables including: time to progressive disease, time to treatment failure, time to death of any cause. II. To estimate the duration of response for responding patients. III. To characterize the toxicities of R115777, gemcitabine, and cisplatin in this patient population. TERTIARY OBJECTIVES: I. To evaluate the association between polymorphism expression in candidate genes and clinical endpoints and toxicity to R115777, gemcitabine, and cisplatin. OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients receive oral tipifarnib twice daily on days 1-14, gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes on days 1 and 8, and cisplatin IV over 2 hours on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for up to 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients with at least stable disease may continue to receive oral tipifarnib alone twice daily on days 1-14. Courses repeat every 21 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients are followed every 6 months for 2 years.