Hospitalization Rates of Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treated With Gemcitabine and Either Cisplatin or Carboplatin

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known if one regimen will require patients to spend more time in the hospital than the other regimen for treatment of chemotherapy-related side effects. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the hospitalization rates of patients who are receiving gemcitabine combined with cisplatin with that of patients receiving gemcitabine combined with carboplatin for unresectable stage III or stage IV non-small cell lung cancer.