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 cancer cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy in treating patients who have advanced cancer of the urothelium with decreased kidney function.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the response rate of patients with progressive regional or metastatic transitional cell carcinoma of the urothelium with renal insufficiency when treated with paclitaxel and gemcitabine.
• Determine the toxicity of this regimen in this patient population.

OUTLINE: Patients receive paclitaxel IV over 1 hour followed immediately by gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes on days 1, 8, and 15. Treatment continues every 4 weeks for a minimum of 3 courses in the absence of unacceptable toxicity or disease progression.

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

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 10-27 patients will be accrued for this study within 10-27 months.

• Bladder Cancer
• Transitional Cell Cancer of the Renal Pelvis and Ureter
• Urethral Cancer

• Drug: gemcitabine hydrochloride
• Drug: paclitaxel

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed progressive regional or metastatic transitional cell carcinoma of the urothelium

  • Mixed histologies containing a component of transitional cell carcinoma allowed
• Bidimensionally measurable disease
• No clinical evidence of CNS metastases
• Clinically unsuspected organ-confined prostate cancer found at time of cystoprostatectomy allowed

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 18 and over

Performance status:

• ECOG 0-2

Life expectancy:

• Not specified

Hematopoietic:

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

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin no greater than 1.5 mg/dL
• SGOT no greater than 2.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN) and alkaline phosphatase normal OR
• Alkaline phosphatase no greater than 4 times ULN and SGOT normal OR
• SGOT less than 1.5 times ULN and alkaline phosphatase less than 2.5 times ULN

Renal:

• Creatinine no greater than 3.0 mg/dL
• Glomerular filtration rate no greater than 50 mL/min

Cardiovascular:

• No history of American Heart Association class III or IV heart disease
• No uncontrolled congestive heart failure
• No severe cardiac arrhythmias

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• No preexisting peripheral neuropathy grade 2 or greater
• No active unresolved infection requiring parenteral antibiotics within the past 7 days
• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except curatively treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer or carcinoma in situ of the cervix

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• No prior systemic biologic response modifier therapy for advanced disease
• Prior intravesical BCG for superficial disease allowed

Chemotherapy:

• Prior intravesical chemotherapy for superficial disease allowed
• No prior chemotherapy for advanced disease
• At least 6 months since prior adjuvant/neoadjuvant methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin (MVAC) or cisplatin, methotrexate, and vinblastine (CMV), or cisplatin as a radiosensitizer

Endocrine therapy:

• Not specified

Radiotherapy:

• At least 4 weeks since prior radiotherapy
• No concurrent radiotherapy

Surgery:

• See Disease Characteristics
• At least 4 weeks since prior major surgery and recovered

Other:

• No concurrent hemodialysis