Sirolimus and Auranofin in Treating Patients With Advanced or Recurrent Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer or Small Cell Lung Cancer

Exclusion Criteria

• •Any of the following:
• •* Pregnant women
• •* Nursing women
• •* Men or women of childbearing potential who are unwilling to employ adequate contraception
• •Symptomatic, untreated, or uncontrolled central nervous system (CNS) metastases or seizure disorder; NOTE: patients with treated CNS metastases without evidence of progression and without uncontrolled symptoms or need for steroids may enroll
• •Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients receiving combination anti-retroviral therapy are excluded
• •Unwilling or unable to, comply with the protocol
• •Any of the following prior therapies:
• •* Radiation to \>= 25% of bone marrow
• •* Major surgery (i.e., laparotomy), open biopsy, or significant traumatic injury =\< 4 weeks prior to registration; minor surgery =\< 2 weeks prior to registration; insertion of a vascular access device is not considered major or minor surgery in this regard
• •Any of the following concurrent severe and/or uncontrolled medical conditions:
• •* Hypertension, labile hypertension, or history of poor compliance with antihypertensive medication
• •* Angina pectoris
• •* History of congestive heart failure =\< 3 months, unless ejection fraction \> 40%
• •* Myocardial infarction =\< 6 months prior to registration
• •* Cardiac arrhythmia
• •* Poorly controlled diabetes
• •* Interstitial pneumonia or extensive and symptomatic interstitial fibrosis of the lung
• •* Active or recent history of hemoptysis; if hemoptysis has resolved with measures such as palliative radiation therapy (e.g. 3000 cGy over 10 fractions), arteriographic embolization or endobronchial interventions (e.g. photodynamic therapy, brachytherapy), etc. for \> 14 days, patients may be considered for participation in this study
• •* \>= Grade 2 hypertriglyceridemia
• •* \>= Grade 2 hypercholesterolemia
• •* Any illness that in the opinion of the investigator would compromise the ability of the patient to participate safely in the clinical trial
• •Use of St. John's Wort because of its effects on hepatic drug metabolism
• •Other active malignancy: EXCEPTIONS: Non-melanoma skin cancer, localized prostate cancer, or carcinoma-in-situ of the cervix; NOTE: If there is a history or prior malignancy, patient must not be receiving other cytotoxic or molecularly targeted therapeutics treatment for their cancer; patients receiving certain hormonal manipulations as part of their treatment may be allowed to continue at the discretion of the Principal Investigator (PI) (e.g. luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone \[LHRH\] analogs for prostate cancer)
• •Unable to discontinue use of potent cytochrome P450, family 3, subfamily A, polypeptide 4 (CYP3A4) inhibitors/inducers