Active clinical trials for "Pancreatic Neoplasms"

This Phase Ib dose escalation study will evaluate BTH1704, a monoclonal antibody that targets an aberrantly glycosylated antigen Mucin 1, and Imprime PGG, a glucan contained in yeast that is essential in triggering a leukocyte-mediated cytotoxic response towards tumor cells, in combination with gemcitabine in patients with advanced PDAC. The three intravenous drugs are taken in tandem 4 times in a 28-day cycle. The MAD of BTH1704 (BTH, 3 dose levels) in combination with gemcitabine (Gem) and Imprime PGG (I) will be determined using a standard "3+3" design. Treatment continues until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, physician discretion, or patient refusal.

When distal pancreatectomy is carried out for left-sided pancreatic cancer, splenectomy is usually performed not only for margin-negative resection but also for effective clearance of the splenic hilar lymph nodes. However, there was no scientific evidence regarding the justifiability for spleen resection. Considering potential immunological function of the spleen, the investigators hypothesized that distal pancreatectomy without pancreatectomy for left-sided pancreatic cancer is superior than Distal pancreatectomy with pancreatectomy in terms of short-term perioperative outcomes and disease-specific overall survival.

Purpose of this phase I/II study is to test how well LY2090314 works in combination with different chemotherapies in treating participants with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

There is now overwhelming evidence documenting the efficacy of psychotherapy in the treatment of depression in the general population. Surprisingly, however, given the high prevalence of depression in cancer patients, there are very few studies on the efficacy of psychotherapy in this population. Published studies of psychotherapy in cancer patients generally include patients with high heterogeneity of psychiatric diagnosis and frequently include patients without a psychiatric diagnosis, with the aim of preventing the appearance of a psychiatric disorder. This heterogeneity complicates the interpretation of the efficacy and specificity of these interventions. Specifically, the efficacy of psychotherapy for major depression in patients with cancer is unknown.

Unfortunately, despite the best clinical efforts and breakthroughs in biotechnology, most patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer continue to die from the rapid progression of their disease. One primary reason for this is that the disease is typically without symptoms until significant local and/or distant spread has occurred and is often beyond the chance for cure at the time of the diagnosis. The lack of any treatment to substantially increase long term survival rates is reflected by the poor outcomes associated with this disease, specifically time to disease progression and overall survival. However, another important part of the body is now being looked at as a target for therapy against this disease - the immune system. Scientists have clearly shown that pancreatic tumor cells produce a number of defective proteins, or express normal proteins in highly uncharacteristic ways, as part of this cancer. In some cancers, these abnormalities can cause an immune response to the cancer cells much in the way one responds to infected tissue. In progressive cancers however, the immune system fails to effectively identify or respond to these abnormalities and the cancer cells are not attacked or destroyed for reasons not yet fully understood. This clinical trial proposes a new way to stimulate the immune system to recognize pancreatic cancer cells and to stimulate an immune response that destroys or blocks the growth of the cancer. This new method of treatment helps the immune system of pancreatic cancer patients to "identify" the cancerous tissue so that it can be eliminated from the body. As an example, patients with certain diseases may require an organ transplant to replace a damaged kidney or heart. After receiving their transplant, these patients receive special drugs because they are at great danger of having an immune response that destroys or "rejects" the transplanted organ. This "rejection" occurs when their immune system responds to differences between the cells of the transplanted organ and their own immune system by attacking the foreign tissue in the same way as it would attack infected tissue. When the differences between foreign tissues and the patient's body are even larger, as with the differences between organs from different species, the rejection is very rapid, highly destructive, and the immunity it generates is longlasting. This is called hyperacute rejection and the medicine used to immunize patients in this protocol tries to harness this response to teach a patient's immune system to fight their pancreatic cancer just as the body would learn to reject a transplanted organ from an animal. To do this, Algenpantucel-L immunotherapy contains human pancreatic cancer cells that contain a mouse gene that marks the cancer cells as foreign to patient's immune systems. The immune system therefore attacks these cancer cells just as they would attack any truly foreign tissue, destroying as much as it can. Additionally, the immune system is stimulated to identify differences (aside from the mouse gene) between these cancer cells and normal human tissue as foreign. This "education" of the immune system helps treat the patient because pancreatic cancer cells already present in a treated patient are believed to show some of the same differences from normal tissue as the modified pancreatic cancer cells in the product. Due to these similarities, the immune system, once "educated" by the Algenpantucel-L immunotherapy, identifies the patient's cancer as foreign and attacks. Historically, external beam radiation has been part of the treatment of pancreatic cancer, both before and after surgical resection. Recent breakthroughs in technology now allow for more intensive doses of radiation to be delivered to the body with greater precision. These newer, more precise radiation treatments, called stereotactic body radiation, deliver more intensive radiation to a locally advanced tumor and are now being employed in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Stereotactic body radiation may increase the chances that surgery will successfully remove a pancreatic cancer. In this experimental study, all patients will be given a strong combination of antitumor chemotherapy while receiving injections of an immunotherapy drug consisting of two types of pancreatic cancer cells that have been modified to make them more easily recognized and attacked by the immune system. The investigators propose to test this new treatment paradigm along with stereotactic body radiation in patients with borderline resectable pancreatic cancer to demonstrate that treatment with this combination of therapies increases the time until the tumor progresses as well as overall survival.

This randomized, Phase 2, open label study aims to assess the efficacy and safety of gemcitabine + nab paclitaxel with or without dociparstat (ODSH) as first line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer. This study consists of 2 periods: a Run-in Period and a Randomized Period.

Therasphere is a form of treatment that has been designed to selectively deliver radiation to the cancer within the patient's liver. This form of treatment has been used in a number of clinical trials and has been approved for use in the treatment of liver cancer. The investigators want to test the safety of using Gemcitabine (a chemotherapy drug) with TheraSphere (radioactive beads that are injected directly into the blood vessel supplying the tumor in the liver) in patients with advanced pancreatobiliary tumors such as pancreatic cancer or cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct tumors) involving the liver.

The investigators recently completed a phase I study of intravenous ascorbic acid (IV AA) plus standard chemotherapy (gemcitabine and erlotinib) in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The investigators determined that the target ceiling dosage of 100 grams of ascorbic acid is safe when given with the chemotherapy. This Phase II trial is an initial test of efficacy of the 100 gram dose of ascorbic acid, which will be given with the same standard chemotherapy. This open label study will recruit up to 35 subjects with metastatic pancreatic cancer who will receive ascorbic acid combined with gemcitabine and erlotinib as front-line treatment. The phase I data suggests that ascorbic acid when given in combination with gemcitabine and erlotinib may result in some tumor response, and the goal of this study is to better evaluate the response and confirm initial safety data

RATIONALE: Heat shock protein (HSP)90 inhibitor STA-9090 may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the proteins needed for cell growth. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well hsp90 inhibitor STA-9090 works as second- or third-line therapy for the treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Background: In 2009, 49,096 patients were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer carries a poor prognosis with an overall 5-year relative survival rate of 5.6%. Many doctors believe that individuals who have had surgery to remove pancreatic cancer should receive additional treatment, known as adjuvant therapy or adjuvant treatment, to prevent the cancer from returning. One chemotherapy drug that has been found to be effective in some patients with pancreatic cancer is called gemcitabine; it has been shown to improve patient survival by 6 months. Researchers are searching for new drugs or drug combinations to improve on these results. One of the leading causes for immune suppression in cancer patients was suggested to be associated with the elevated expression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) human B7 homolog 1 (B7-H1) at tumor-involved sites, either by the tumor itself or by surrounding cells like regulatory immune cells, resulting in the local suppression and apoptosis of tumor infiltrating effector lymphocytes. Some chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells directly, but appear to prevent the immune system from helping in that fight. The experimental drug CT-011 is designed to help the immune system remain active to fight cancer cells. CT-011 has been tested in laboratories and studied for use with a number of other cancers, but it has not been given in combination with gemcitabine as a treatment for pancreatic cancer. Objective: - To test the safety and effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs gemcitabine and CT-011 as a follow-up treatment for pancreatic cancer that has been surgically removed. Eligibility: - Individuals at least 18 years of age who have had surgery to remove pancreatic cancer and have not had other types of follow-up treatments. Design: Participants will receive gemcitabine and CT-011 in 28-day cycles of treatment, and will be monitored throughout their treatment. Participants who do not have serious side effects and remain cancer-free may receive this drug combination every 28 days for a total of 6 cycles. Participants will have follow-up visits with additional blood tests every 2 months after stopping treatment for up to 2 years.