S0819: Carboplatin and Paclitaxel With or Without Bevacizumab and/or Cetuximab in Treating Patients With Stage IV or Recurrent Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Inclusion criteria

* Patients must have histologically or cytologically proven primary non-small cell lung cancer (adenocarcinoma, large cell carcinoma, squamous or unspecified); disease must be stage IV; disease may be either newly diagnosed or recurrent after previous surgery and/or irradiation; patients with additional lesions in an ipsilateral non-primary lobe without M1a or M1b disease will not be considered to have stage IV disease and are not eligible * Patients must have a computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the brain to evaluate for central nervous system (CNS) disease within 42 days prior to registration; patient must not have brain metastases unless: (1) metastases have been treated and have remained controlled for at least two weeks following treatment, AND (2) patient has no residual neurological dysfunction off corticosteroids for at least 1 day * Patients may have measurable or non-measurable disease documented by CT or MRI; the CT from a combined positron emission tomography (PET)/CT may be used to document only non-measurable disease unless it is of diagnostic quality; measurable disease must be assessed within 28 days prior to registration; pleural effusions, ascites and laboratory parameters are not acceptable as the only evidence of disease; non-measurable disease must be assessed within 42 days prior to registration; all disease must be assessed and documented on the Baseline Tumor Assessment Form * Patients must have tumor tissue available for submission that is sufficient for EGFR FISH testing and must agree to submission of these specimens; patients must also agree to submission of specimens for other translational medicine studies; patient must be offered participation in banking for future research * Patients must not have received prior chemotherapy for any stage non-small cell lung cancer; patients must not have received prior platinum-based chemotherapy for any purpose; patient must not have received any cetuximab, gefitinib, erlotinib, or other investigational agents that target the EGFR pathway; patients must not have received for any purpose prior bevacizumab or other vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-related agents; patients must not have received for any purpose prior chimerized or murine monoclonal antibody therapy or have documented presence of human anti-mouse antibodies (HAMA) * Prior radiation is permitted; however, patients must have recovered from all associated toxicities at time of registration; in order to qualify as measurable, measurable disease must be outside the previous radiation field or must have progressed * Time from surgical or biopsy procedures is dependent on whether it is planned for the patient to receive bevacizumab * For patients who are bevacizumab-appropriate AND bevacizumab is planned: at least 28 days must have elapsed since major surgery (i.e. thoracotomy or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery \[VATS\] resection of lung cancer, open pleural biopsy or another major surgical procedure such as abdominal surgery) or significant traumatic injury; patients must have recovered from all associated toxicities at the time of registration; there must be no anticipation of need for major surgical procedures during protocol treatment; patients must not have had a core biopsy, mediastinoscopy, pleurodesis, VATS pleural biopsy or VATS pericardial window within 14 days prior to registration; patients must not have had a percutaneous fine needle aspiration (FNA), thoracentesis or central venous access device implanted within 7 days prior to registration; for other surgical procedures not listed here, please contact the study coordinators * For patients who are bevacizumab-inappropriate or bevacizumab is not planned: at least 28 days must have elapsed since major surgery (i.e. thoracotomy or VATS resection of lung cancer, open pleural biopsy or another major surgical procedure such as abdominal surgery) or significant traumatic injury; patients must have recovered from all associated toxicities at the time of registration; there must be no anticipation of need for major surgical procedures during protocol treatment; patients must not have had a core biopsy, mediastinoscopy, pleurodesis, VATS pleural biopsy or VATS pericardial window within 7 days prior to registration; patients must not have had a percutaneous fine needle aspiration (FNA), or thoracentesis within 1 day prior to registration; patients may have had a central venous access device placed at any time prior to registration; for other surgical procedures not listed here, please contact the study coordinators * Absolute neutrophil count (ANC) \>= 1,500/mcl * Platelet count \>= 100,000/mcl * Hemoglobin \>= 9 g/dL * Serum creatinine =\< institutional upper limit of normal (IULN) AND calculated or measured creatinine clearance \>= 50 cc/min using the following Cockroft-Gault formula * For patients who will be receiving bevacizumab, urine protein must be screened by urine analysis for urine protein creatinine (UPC) ratio; for UPC ratio \> 0.5, 24-hour urine protein must be obtained and the level must be \< 1,000 mg for patient enrollment; the urine protein used to calculate the UPC ratio must be obtained within 14 days prior to registration; UPC or 24-hour protein is not required for patients who will not receive bevacizumab Note: UPC ratio of spot urine is an estimation of the 24-hour urine protein excretion - a UPC ratio of 1 is roughly equivalent to a 24-hour urine protein of 1 gm * Serum bilirubin =\< 2 times IULN (for patients with liver metastases, bilirubin must be =\< 5 X IULN) * Serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) OR serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) =\< 2 times IULN (for patients with liver metastases, either SGOT or SGPT must be =\< 5 X IULN) * Zubrod performance status 0-1 * Patients must not have \>= grade 2 symptomatic neuropathy-sensory (National Cancer Institute \[NCI\] Common Terminology Criteria version 3.0) * Patients must not have documented evidence of acute hepatitis or have an active or uncontrolled infection * Patients must not have the following: history (within past 6 months) of cerebrovascular accident (CVA), myocardial infarction or unstable angina; or at the time of registration, uncontrolled hypertension, New York Heart Association grade 2 or greater congestive heart failure, serious cardiac arrhythmia requiring medication, or clinically significant peripheral vascular disease * Patients must have no known hypersensitivity to Chinese hamster ovary cell products or other recombinant human antibodies (examples include trastuzumab \[Herceptin\] and epoetin alpha) * Patients must be willing to provide prior smoking history * No other prior malignancy is allowed except for any of the following: * Adequately treated basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer * In situ cervical cancer * Adequately treated stage I or II cancer from which the patient is currently in complete remission * Any other cancer from which the patient has been disease-free for 5 years * Patients must not be pregnant or nursing; women/men of reproductive potential must have agreed to use an effective contraceptive method; a woman is considered to be of reproductive potential if she has had menses at any time in the preceding 12 consecutive months; in addition to routine contraceptive methods, effective contraception also includes heterosexual celibacy and surgery intended to prevent pregnancy (or with a side-effect of pregnancy prevention) defined as a hysterectomy, bilateral oophorectomy or bilateral tubal ligation; however, if at any point a previously celibate patient chooses to become heterosexually active during the time period for use of contraceptive measures outlined in the protocol, he/she is responsible for beginning contraceptive measures * Patients or their legally authorized representative must be informed of the investigational nature of this study and must sign and give written informed consent in accordance with institutional and federal guidelines * As a part of the Oncology Patient Enrollment Network (OPEN) registration process the treating institution's identity is provided in order to ensure that the current (within 365 days) date of institutional review board approval for this study has been entered in the system