Vaccine Therapy With or Without Sargramostim in Treating Patients With Stage IIB, Stage IIC, Stage III, or Stage IV Melanoma

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Diagnosis of melanoma

  • Stage IIB, IIC, III, or IV disease
• Must express HLA-A1, -A2, or -A3
• No ocular melanoma

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age

• 12 and over

Performance status

• ECOG 0-1

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• Absolute neutrophil count > 1,000/mm^3
• Platelet count > 100,000/mm^3
• Hemoglobin > 9 g/dL

Hepatic

• Liver function tests ≤ 2.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN)

Renal

• Creatinine ≤ 1.5 times ULN

Cardiovascular

• No New York Heart Association class III or IV heart disease

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer without brain metastasis, carcinoma in situ of the breast, or carcinoma in situ of the cervix

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy

• More than 4 weeks since prior immunotherapy
• More than 4 weeks since prior growth factors
• More than 4 weeks since prior allergy shots
• No prior vaccine therapy for melanoma or any other cancer with any of the peptides used in this study
• More than 12 weeks since prior melanoma vaccine therapy* NOTE: *Prior melanoma vaccine allowed only for patients with disease progression during or after administration of the vaccine

Chemotherapy

• More than 4 weeks since prior chemotherapy

Endocrine therapy

• More than 4 weeks since prior steroids

Radiotherapy

• More than 4 weeks since prior radiotherapy

Surgery

• Not specified