• Pharmacokinetics
• Differences in CD34 stem cell mobilization
• Days of febrile neutropenia
• Days on antibiotics
• Hospital days

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim or filgrastim-SD/01 may increase the number of immune cells found in bone marrow or peripheral blood and may help a person's immune system recover from the side effects of chemotherapy. It is not yet known whether filgrastim is more effective than filgrastim-SD/01 is in helping patients recover from chemotherapy.

PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying filgrastim to see how well it works compared to filgrastim-SD/01 following combination chemotherapy in treating patients with newly diagnosed sarcoma.

OBJECTIVES:

• Compare the toxicity of filgrastim-SD/01 vs filgrastim (G-CSF) administered with concurrent chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed sarcoma.
• Compare the tolerance to these regimens by these patients.
• Compare the pharmacokinetics of these regimens in these patients.
• Compare the neutrophil recovery in patients treated with these regimens.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are randomized to one of two treatment arms.

All patients receive chemotherapy every 3 weeks for a total of 14 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. During courses 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, and 13, patients receive dexrazoxane IV over 15-30 minutes and doxorubicin IV over 15 minutes on days 1 and 2; vincristine IV on day 1 and on days 8 and 15 in courses 1, 2, 9, and 13 only; and cyclophosphamide IV over 1 hour once daily on days 1 and 2. During courses 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, and 14, patients receive etoposide IV over 1 hour and ifosfamide IV over 1 hour once daily on days 1-5.

• Arm I: Patients receive chemotherapy as outlined above and filgrastim (G-CSF) subcutaneously (SC) daily starting 24 hours after chemotherapy and continuing until blood counts recover.
• Arm II: Patients receive chemotherapy as in arm I and filgrastim-SD/01 SC as a single dose 24-36 hours after chemotherapy.

Local control may commence after course 5 and may consist of surgery and/or radiotherapy.

Patients are followed monthly for 6 months, every 3 months for 6 months, every 6 months for 2 years, and then annually for 2 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 34 patients (17 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study within 2 years.

• Cardiac Toxicity
• Neutropenia
• Sarcoma

• Biological: filgrastim
• Biological: pegfilgrastim
• Drug: cyclophosphamide
• Drug: dexrazoxane hydrochloride
• Drug: doxorubicin hydrochloride
• Drug: etoposide
• Drug: ifosfamide
• Drug: vincristine sulfate

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed newly diagnosed sarcoma

  • Ewing's sarcoma family of tumors including peripheral neuroectodermal tumors
  • Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma
  • Stage III or IV embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma

  • Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor with one of the following:

    • Unresectable disease
    • Incompletely resected with bulk residual disease
    • Metastatic disease

  • Synovial cell sarcoma with one of the following:

    • Unresectable disease
    • Incompletely resected with bulk residual disease
    • Metastatic disease
• No histological evidence of bone marrow infiltration

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 25 and under at diagnosis

Performance status:

• Not specified

Life expectancy:

• Not specified

Hematopoietic:

• Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,500/mm^3
• Hemoglobin at least 9.0 g/dL
• Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin less than 2.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN)
• SGPT less than 5 times ULN

Renal:

• Creatinine normal OR
• Creatinine clearance greater than 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• Ejection fraction normal by MUGA or echocardiogram

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception during and for 6 months after study therapy

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• No other concurrent growth factors (e.g., sargramostim (GM-CSF), epoetin alfa, or interleukin-11)

Chemotherapy:

• No prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• No prior radiotherapy

Surgery:

• See Disease Characteristics