Active clinical trials for "Brain Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Stereotactic radiosurgery may be able to send x-rays directly to the tumor and cause less damage to normal tissue. Giving stereotactic radiosurgery before surgery may make the tumor smaller and reduce the amount of normal tissue that needs to be removed. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well stereotactic radiosurgery works in treating patients with brain metastases.

The goal of this clinical research study is to learn if TPI 287 can help to control glioblastoma. The safety of this drug will also be studied.

This clinical trial is studying how well giving cilengitide together with sunitinib malate works in treating patients with advanced solid tumors or glioblastoma multiforme. Cilengitide and sunitinib malate may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking blood flow to the tumor. Giving cilengitide together with sunitinib malate may kill more tumor cells. Studying samples of blood in the laboratory from patients receiving cilengitide and sunitinib malate may help doctors understand the effect of these drugs on biomarkers.

In recent years, remarkable advances in medical oncology, surgery, and radiology have allowed for increasing cure rates for childhood malignancies. This success has led to an emerging understanding of the kinds of effects that treatments can have on the pediatric population and how such effects can influence pediatric cancer survivor's functioning and quality of life. It has become tremendously important to assess the long-term complications due to therapy in this growing sector of survivors and to tailor our treatments so as to minimize these late effects. The Investigators at MGH are committed to improving the delivery of radiotherapy to our patients and improving the outcome for these patients. MGH has an on-site cyclotron for proton radiotherapy in order to provide the most advanced care for patients in need. Proton therapy possesses a clinical advantage over standard photon therapy in that its optimal dose distribution delivers the bulk of radiation to the tumor site. This method spares the greatest volume of normal tissue, resulting in decreased short-term and long-term morbidity. Through open pediatric protocols for patients treated with proton radiotherapy, the investigators aim to define and report the acute and late effects associated with treatment. The investigators also treat a number of patients off-protocol with both proton and photon radiotherapy, and are interested in reporting these patients' QOL outcomes in conjunction with other clinical data that may be pertinent to the site of tumor treatment. This research is significant in that it will allow us to delineate the positive and negative effects of radiation treatment on patients' QOL, highlighting points of success and exposing areas that are in need of improvement. Such knowledge will be used to improve the experience of pediatric cancer survivors in the future. The aims of this study are: 1) to prospectively collect and report the QOL outcomes in patients treated with radiotherapy and 2) to correlate the QOL data with pertinent clinical information.

This is a "tissue banking and data review" research study that also has a "clinical" research part: The goal of the tissue banking part of this study is to store tissue in a research tissue bank by the International Society for Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) at an international reference center for choroid plexus tumors. The tissue will be used in future research related to cancer. The goal of the data review part of this study is to collect information from the medical records of patients with choroid plexus tumors, and to store the information in SIOP databases for use in future research related to cancer. The goal of this clinical research study is to compare 4 chemotherapy treatments for choroid plexus tumors. The safety and level of effectiveness of these study treatments will be compared and studied. The study drugs include different combinations of etoposide, carboplatin, vincristine, cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, doxorubicin, cisplatin, dactinomycin, temozolomide, and irinotecan.

The purpose of this study is to: Test the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) of Bendamustine with whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) To determine the plasma pharmacokinetics (a blood test to see how much of the drug is getting into the patient's system and how long it lasts in the system) of Bendamustine To determine the presence of Bendamustine in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (fluid from the brain and spinal cord) of study patients Bendamustine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. However, Bendamustine will be used in this study as an investigational agent.

This study is being conducted to evaluate the safety and tolerability of Xerecept® in children with central nervous system tumors and to identify appropriate doses of Xerecept® to be used in subsequent pediatric clinical trials.

This is an open label phase I clinical trial with two arms, representing single and fractionated radiation therapy (Figure 4.1). Within each arm the radiation dose is pre-determined and not escalated. Panobinostat will be administered orally 3 times a week for 2 weeks. Panobinostat will be dose-escalated independently in each arm. There is no intra-patient dose escalation. Recurrent gliomas (Arm A) will be treated according to the Jefferson protocol for re-irradiation, 10 fractions each of 3.5Gy delivered over 2 weeks. Panobinostat will be administered orally three times a week for 2 weeks, starting on day 1 or 2 of radiation therapy. High-grade meningiomas (Arm A) will be treated with 6 weeks/30 fractions of fractionated radiation therapy, to a total dose of between 54 Gy and 60 Gy in fractions of either 1.8Gy or 2Gy. Panobinostat will be administered orally three times a week for 2 weeks, starting on the day of 1st fraction of radiation. Large brain metastases (Arm B) will be treated with a single fraction of radiosurgery. Panobinostat will be administered orally three times a week for 2 weeks, starting on the day of radiation. The radiosurgery may be delivered by either LINAC, gamma-knife, cyber-knife or tomotherapy technology.

RATIONALE: Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Pemetrexed may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving radiation therapy together with pemetrexed may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving whole-brain radiation therapy together with pemetrexed works in treating patients with brain metastases from non-small cell lung cancer.

The primary purpose of the study is to evaluate if motexafin gadolinium with whole brain radiation therapy followed by a stereotactic radiosurgery boost is a safe and effective treatment.