Interleukin-2 and Sargramostim After Chemotherapy in Treating Patients With Stage III or Stage IV Melanoma

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

* Histologically confirmed melanoma

  * Stage III or IV disease
  * No primary ocular melanoma
* Stable disease (SD) or partial response (PR) after prior systemic chemotherapy completed at least 4 weeks ago

  * Patients whose second post-chemotherapy evaluation (performed at least 4 weeks after the first evaluation that demonstrated SD or PR AND within 2 weeks before study entry) of disease demonstrates continued tumor shrinkage are not eligible
  * Patients whose second evaluation shows disease progression are eligible unless one of the following is true:

    * Lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) ≥ 2 times upper limit of normal (ULN)
    * LDH \> ULN AND is higher than the patient's highest value before systemic chemotherapy
    * Patient has developed a new tumor measuring \> 1 cm in diameter
    * Sum of the longest diameters of the existing tumor has increased \> 20%
* Evaluable or measurable disease
* Not potentially curable by surgery
* No active CNS metastases

  * Solitary brain metastasis allowed if completely resected or completely ablated with radiosurgery more than 1 month before study entry

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

* 16 and over

Performance status

* Karnofsky 60-100%

Life expectancy

* Not specified

Hematopoietic

* WBC ≥ 3,000/mm\^3
* Platelet count ≥ 100,000/mm\^3
* No active bleeding

Hepatic

* See Disease Characteristics
* Bilirubin ≤ 2.0 mg/dL

Renal

* Creatinine ≤ 1.2 mg/dL

Cardiovascular

* Patients ≥ 50 years of age OR those with one or more cardiac risk factors must demonstrate one of the following:

  * Normal exercise stress test
  * Normal stress thallium test
  * Normal comparable cardiac ischemia evaluation
* LVEF ≥ 40%

Other

* No active infection requiring treatment
* No concurrent medical or psychiatric condition that would increase the potential toxicity of study treatment
* Not pregnant or nursing
* Negative pregnancy test
* Fertile patients must use effective barrier contraception

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

* No other concurrent antineoplastic biologic response modifier therapy
* No concurrent antineoplastic vaccine therapy

Chemotherapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* No concurrent antineoplastic chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

* No concurrent steroidal antiemetics
* No concurrent systemic corticosteroids

Radiotherapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* No concurrent antineoplastic radiotherapy

Surgery

* See Disease Characteristics
* Recovered from prior surgery
* Surgery within the past 4 weeks allowed provided there is no evidence of disease progression

Other

* More than 4 weeks since prior therapy for melanoma
* No other concurrent antineoplastic experimental therapy