RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. IM-862 may kill tumor cells by stopping blood flow to the tumor and by stimulating a person's white blood cells to kill tumor cells. Combining chemotherapy and IM-862 may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Randomized phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy and IM-862 in treating patients who have resected stage III ovarian cancer or primary peritoneal cancer.

OBJECTIVES: I. Determine the complete pathologic response rate at second-look surgery in patients with optimally resected stage III ovarian epithelial or primary peritoneal cancer treated with adjuvant paclitaxel, carboplatin, and IM-862. II. Determine the safety profile of this regimen in this patient population. III. Determine the incidence of infectious and hematologic complications in patients treated with this regimen. IV. Determine the progression-free survival of patients with no disease or minimal disease burden after initial therapy, when treated with IM-862 consolidation therapy. V. Correlate angiogenesis markers and immunologic parameters with response in patients treated with this regimen. OUTLINE: This is a randomized, double-blind, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to participating center. Patients are randomized to one of three IM-862 doses. Patients receive paclitaxel IV over 3 hours and carboplatin IV over 30 minutes on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Treatment with IM-862 begins within 10 days of chemotherapy initiation and continues until clinical evidence of disease progression or until 3 days before second-look surgery. Arm I: Patients receive a low-dose of IM-862 and 2 placebo doses intranasally daily. Arm II: Patients receive a medium-dose of IM-862 and 2 placebo doses as in arm I. Arm III: Patients receive higher-dose IM-862 intranasally three times daily. Patients undergo second-look surgery within 4-8 weeks after completion of the last course of chemotherapy. Patients with a complete pathologic response or only microscopically detectable residual disease receive consolidation therapy with IM-862, according to their original treatment arm. Consolidation therapy begins within 3-14 days after second-look surgery and continues for 24 weeks in the absence of disease progression. Patients are followed at 6 and 12 months. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 180 patients (60 per arm) will be accrued for this study within 1 year.