Active clinical trials for "Astrocytoma"

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as temozolomide, carmustine, and lomustine, use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining radiation therapy with chemotherapy may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying radiation therapy and temozolomide to see how well they work compared to radiation therapy and carmustine or lomustine in treating patients with anaplastic astrocytoma or mixed gliomas.

RATIONALE: Biological therapies such as gefitinib may interfere with the growth of tumor cells and slow the growth of CNS tumors. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of gefitinib in treating patients who have recurrent or progressive CNS tumors.

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase I trial to study the effectiveness of stereotactic radiosurgery in treating patients who have brain tumors.

This Phase 1 study in patients with newly diagnosed malignant glioma is designed to determine the highest dose of IL13-PE38QQR that can be safely administered by Convection Enhanced Delivery (CED) to the area around the tumor site after the tumor is surgically removed (resection). In addition, the patient will receive radiation therapy and may or may not be treated with oral temozolomide.

Phase I trial to study the effectiveness of erlotinib in treating patients who have metastatic or unresectable solid tumors and liver or kidney dysfunction. Biological therapies such as erlotinib may interfere with the growth of tumor cells and slow the growth of the tumor

This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of erlotinib when given with temozolomide in treating young patients with recurrent or refractory solid tumors. Erlotinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking the enzymes necessary for their growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as temozolomide, work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Giving erlotinib with temozolomide may kill more tumor cells.

The primary goal of this study is to determine if a stem cell transplant in patients with newly diagnosed high risk CNS tumors (glioblastoma multiforme [GBM], high grade astrocytoma, pineoblastoma, rhabdoid tumor, supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumor [PNET]) increases overall survival.

IL13-PE38QQR is an oncology drug product consisting of IL13 (interleukin-13) and PE38QQR (a bacteria toxin). IL3-PE38QQR is a protein that exhibits cell killing activity against a variety of IL13 receptor-positive tumor cell lines indicating that it may show a therapeutic benefit. In reciprocal competition experiments, the interaction between IL13-PE38QQR and the IL13 receptors was shown to be highly specific for human glioma cells. IL13-PE38QQR will be infused in two courses of 96 hours each, eight weeks apart, directly into the malignant brain tumors of patients to determine the dose of drug these patients can tolerate. After that, the selected dose will be studied to give an estimate of the response rate, response duration, time to response, and survival after infusing that dose of IL13-PE38QQR into the recurrent malignant glioma.

The overall aim of this study is to prospectively characterize social health disparities in a cross-sectional cohort of glioma patients with attention to exploring and thematically categorizing the patient-specific and community-level factors. This will be conducted in two parts.

To determine if FDOPA-PET/MRI imaging can predict response to treatment of bevacizumab.