RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of docetaxel in treating older women who have metastatic breast cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the feasibility of treating elderly women with metastatic breast cancer with docetaxel.
• Determine the overall survival, 2-year survival, and response (confirmed and unconfirmed complete and partial) in patients treated with this drug.
• Determine the toxicity and tolerability of this drug in these patients.
• Determine the feasibility of using standardized self-report measures of comorbidity, depression, and functional status in elderly cancer patients.
• Determine the parameters of clinical pharmacology of this drug in elderly patients and in patients under 60 years of age.
• Determine, preliminarily, the genetic polymorphisms and gene expression levels of enzymes involved in drug metabolism and resistance in patients treated with this drug.

OUTLINE: Patients are stratified according to age (70 and over vs under 60).

Patients receive docetaxel IV over 1 hour on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed every 3 months for 3 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: Approximately 80 patients (60 patients age 70 and over and 20 patients under age 60) will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed breast cancer

  • Distant metastatic disease confirmed by histology, cytology, or strong clinical evidence
• Measurable disease
• No known brain or CNS metastases

• Hormone receptor status:

  • Not specified

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 70 and over OR
• Under 60

Sex:

• Female

Menopausal status:

• Not specified

Performance status:

• Zubrod 0-2

Life expectancy:

• Not specified

Hematopoietic:

• Absolute granulocyte count at least 1,500/mm^3
• Hemoglobin at least 9 g/dL
• Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin no greater than upper limit of normal (ULN)
• SGOT or SGPT no greater than 1.5 times ULN (2.0 times ULN if liver metastases are present)
• Alkaline phosphatase no greater than 1.5 times ULN (2.0 times ULN if liver metastases are present)

Renal:

• Creatinine no greater than ULN

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• HIV negative
• No other prior malignancy within the past 5 years except adequately treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer, carcinoma in situ of the cervix, or adequately treated stage I or II cancer in complete remission

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• No concurrent immunotherapy for breast cancer

Chemotherapy:

• Prior adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy allowed
• Prior adjuvant taxanes allowed
• No other concurrent chemotherapy for breast cancer

Endocrine therapy:

• Prior hormonal therapy in the adjuvant setting or for metastatic disease allowed
• No concurrent hormonal therapy for breast cancer

Radiotherapy:

• No concurrent radiotherapy for breast cancer

Surgery:

• Not specified

Other

• No more than 1 prior regimen for advanced, recurrent, or metastatic disease