Monoclonal Antibody HuHMFG1 in Treating Women With Locally Advanced or Metastatic Breast Cancer

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

* Histologically or cytologically confirmed breast cancer

  * Locally advanced or metastatic disease
  * No inflammatory breast cancer
* Measurable (RECIST) or evaluable disease (e.g., cytologically or radiologically detectable disease that does not fulfill RECIST criteria)
* Failed prior OR not a candidate for OR refused anthracycline- and taxane-containing chemotherapy
* Patients whose tumor overexpresses HER-2 must have failed prior trastuzumab (Herceptin®)
* No known CNS metastases
* No metastases accessible to complete surgical resection
* Unstained slides cut from formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded tumor blocks available

  * Appropriate tumor block also acceptable
* Hormone receptor status:

  * Not specified

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

* 18 and over

Sex

* Female

Menopausal status

* Not specified

Performance status

* WHO 0-1

Life expectancy

* At least 4 months

Hematopoietic

* Hemoglobin ≥ 10 g/dL
* Absolute neutrophil count ≥ 1,500/mm\^3
* WBC ≥ 1,000/mm\^3
* Platelet count ≥ 100,000/mm\^3

Hepatic

* Bilirubin ≤ 1.5 mg/dL
* ALT or AST ≤ 2.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN) (\< 5 times ULN in patients with liver metastases) OR
* Alkaline phosphatase ≤ 2.5 times ULN (\< 5 times ULN in patients with liver metastases)

  * Any degree of elevated alkaline phosphatase allowed provided it is due to bone metastases

Renal

* Creatinine ≤ 1.5 times ULN OR
* Creatinine clearance \> 60 mL/min
* Uric acid \< 1.25 times ULN (for patients with hyperuricemia only)
* Calcium (corrected for serum albumin) \< 11.5 mg/dL (for patients with hypercalcemia only)

Cardiovascular

* LVEF ≥ 45% by MUGA or echocardiogram within the past 4 weeks

Other

* Not pregnant or nursing
* Negative pregnancy test
* Fertile patients must use effective barrier contraception
* No other malignancy within the past 5 years except adequately treated nonmelanoma skin cancer or cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia
* No other uncontrolled illness that would preclude study participation

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* Prior biological therapy allowed
* More than 2 weeks since prior blood transfusions or growth factors to aid hematological recovery
* No other concurrent antitumor immunotherapy

Chemotherapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* More than 4 weeks since prior cytotoxic chemotherapy
* No more than 3 prior chemotherapy regimens, including adjuvant/neoadjuvant therapy
* No concurrent antitumor chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

* Prior hormonal therapy allowed
* No concurrent corticosteroids except as physiologic replacement and/or for acute short-term treatment of, or prophylaxis against, infusion reactions
* No concurrent antitumor hormonal therapy

Radiotherapy

* See Disease Characteristics
* More than 4 weeks since prior radiotherapy (except for palliative radiotherapy)
* No concurrent antitumor radiotherapy, except for palliation to non-study lesions

  * Irradiated area should be as small as possible and involve ≤ 10% of the bone marrow in any given 4-week period

Surgery

* More than 4 weeks since prior major surgery

Other

* More than 30 days since prior investigational agents
* No other concurrent investigational agents