Combination Chemotherapy With or Without Trastuzumab in Treating Patients With Stage II or Stage III Breast Cancer

OBJECTIVES: Primary * Compare 2 neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens (docetaxel, doxorubicin hydrochloride, and cyclophosphamide \[TAC\] vs doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by paclitaxel and carboplatin \[ACAC\]), in terms of toxicities and effectiveness as defined by the pathological complete remission rate, in patients with non HER2/neu overexpressing stage II or III breast cancer. * Evaluate the probability of achieving a pathological complete remission when adding trastuzumab (Herceptin®) to ACAC in the subset of patients with HER2/neu overexpressing stage II or III breast cancer. Secondary * Identify prognostic and predictive markers of outcome, recurrence, and targets of therapy. OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients with non HER2/neu overexpressing tumors are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. Patients with HER2/neu overexpressing tumors are assigned to arm III. * Arm I: Patients receive doxorubicin hydrochloride IV, cyclophosphamide IV, and docetaxel IV on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for 6 courses. * Arm II: Patients receive doxorubicin hydrochloride IV and cyclophosphamide IV on day 1; treatment repeats every 2 weeks for 4 courses. Patients then receive carboplatin IV on day 1 and paclitaxel IV on days 1, 8, and 15; treatment with carboplatin and paclitaxel repeats every 4 weeks for 3 courses. * Arm III: Patients receive chemotherapy as in arm II. They also receive trastuzumab (Herceptin®) IV weekly, beginning with the first doses of paclitaxel and carboplatin. Within 4 weeks after completion of chemotherapy with or without trastuzumab (Herceptin®), all patients undergo surgery. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 105 patients will be accrued for this study.