Vaccine Therapy in Treating Patients With Metastatic Melanoma

RATIONALE: Vaccines may make the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of vaccine therapy in treating patients who have metastatic melanoma that has not responded to previous therapy.

OBJECTIVES:

* Determine the clinical response to immunization using gp100:44-59 antigen peptide plus gp100:209-217 (210M) and MART-1:26-35 (27L) antigen peptides in patients with metastatic melanoma who are HLA-DRB1\*0401 and HLA-A0201 positive.
* Determine the clinical response to immunization using gp100:44-59 antigen peptide alone in patients with metastatic melanoma who are HLA-DRB1\*0401 positive but HLA-A0201 negative.
* Determine the immunologic response in patients treated with these regimens as measured by changes in T-cell precursors from before to after treatment.
* Evaluate the toxicity profiles of these regimens in these patients.

OUTLINE: Patients are assigned to one of three immunization groups based on HLA-A0201 status and prior gp100:209-217 (210M) antigen peptide immunization:

* Group 1 (HLA-A0201 positive and no prior gp100:209-217 \[210M\] antigen peptide): Patients receive gp100:44-59 and gp100:209-217 (210M) antigen peptides emulsified together in Montanide ISA-51 (ISA-51) subcutaneously (SC) and gp100:44-59 and MART-1:26-35 (27L) antigen peptides emulsified together in ISA-51 SC.
* Group 2 (HLA-A0201 positive and prior gp100:209-217 \[210M\] antigen peptide): Patients receive treatment as in group 1.
* Group 3 (HLA-A0201 negative and no prior gp100:209-217 \[210M\] antigen peptide): Patients receive gp100:44-59 antigen peptide emulsified in ISA-51 SC alone.
* All groups: Treatment repeats every 3 weeks for 4 doses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients with complete response after 4 doses receive a maximum of 2 additional doses. Patients with stable disease or minor, mixed, or partial response after 4 doses receive a maximum of 12 additional doses. Patients with no response after 4 doses receive immunization with the same peptides and interleukin-2 IV over 15 minutes every 8 hours for a maximum of 12 doses beginning 1 day after each immunization.

Patients are followed at 3-4 weeks.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 45-75 patients (15-25 per immunization group) will be accrued for this study within 2 years.

Eligibility Criteria:
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

* Histologically proven metastatic melanoma that has failed standard treatment
* HLA-DRB1\*0401 positive
* Known HLA-A0201 status

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

* 16 and over

Performance status:

* ECOG 0-2

Life expectancy:

* More than 3 months

Hematopoietic:

* WBC at least 3,000/mm\^3
* Platelet count at least 90,000/mm\^3

Hepatic:

* Bilirubin no greater than 2.0 mg/dL
* AST or ALT less than 3 times normal
* Hepatitis B surface antigen negative

Renal:

* Creatinine no greater than 2.0 mg/dL

Cardiovascular:

* No symptomatic cardiac disease

Immunologic:

* No autoimmune disease
* No primary or secondary immunodeficiency disease
* HIV negative

Other:

* Not pregnant or nursing
* Negative pregnancy test
* Fertile patients must use effective contraception
* No active systemic infection

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

* No prior immunization to the entire gp100 molecule
* At least 3 weeks since prior gp100:209-217 antigen peptide
* At least 3 weeks since other prior biologic therapy

Chemotherapy:

* At least 3 weeks since prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy:

* At least 3 weeks since prior endocrine therapy
* No concurrent steroid therapy

Radiotherapy:

* At least 3 weeks since prior radiotherapy

Surgery:

* Prior surgery for cancer allowed

Other:

* At least 3 weeks since any prior therapy except surgery for cancer