Phenylbutyrate and Valganciclovir in Treating Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Epstein-Barr Virus-Positive Cancer
Gastric Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, Lymphoma
About this trial
This is an interventional treatment trial for Gastric Cancer focused on measuring recurrent lymphoepithelioma of the nasopharynx, post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder, adult nasal type extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, recurrent adult Hodgkin lymphoma, AIDS-related peripheral/systemic lymphoma, AIDS-related primary CNS lymphoma, recurrent gastric cancer
Eligibility Criteria
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:
Biopsy-proven Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive malignancy
Must have tissue analysis to confirm EBV positivity
- Archival tissue ≤ 1 year old may be used
Any of the following malignancies:
- WHO type II or III nasopharyngeal carcinoma
- Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder
- Nasal NK/T-cell lymphoma
- Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Lymphoepithelioma-variant gastric carcinoma
AIDS-related lymphomas
- Patients with CNS non-Hodgkin's lymphoma must have tumor cells present in the cerebrospinal fluid (and assessable with lumbar puncture)
Relapsed or refractory disease
- Must have received and failed all prior potentially curative treatment for disease
- Eligible only for salvage therapy
Must have tumor tissue amenable for minimally invasive biopsy (e.g., fine-needle aspiration or bone marrow biopsy)
- No brain tumors not amenable to biopsy
- CNS metastases allowed provided ≥ 2 weeks since prior radiotherapy
PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:
- ECOG performance status 0-2
- Life expectancy ≥ 3 months
- Absolute granulocyte count ≥ 500/mm³
- Platelet count ≥ 50,000/mm³
- Bilirubin ≤ 1.5 times upper limit of normal
- Creatinine ≤ 2.0 mg/dL OR creatinine clearance ≥ 40 mL/min
Recovered from uncontrolled intercurrent illness, including, but not limited to, any of the following:
- Ongoing or active infection
- Symptomatic congestive heart failure
- Unstable angina pectoris
- Cardiac arrhythmia
- Able to take medication orally or by gastrostomy tube
- Not pregnant or nursing
- Negative pregnancy test
- Fertile patients must use effective contraception prior to, during, and for 90 days after completion of study treatment
- No uncontrolled grade 1 symptomatic diarrhea (i.e., > 3 stools/day)
- No concurrent serious medical or psychiatric illness that would preclude study participation
PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:
- See Disease Characteristics
- Concurrent cerebrospinal fluid drugs allowed
- No concurrent zidovudine for HIV-positive patients
Sites / Locations
- Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center
Arms of the Study
Arm 1
Other
Single Arm Study of Biopsy