Active clinical trials for "Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma"

The standard of care for children with DIPG includes focal radiotherapy (RT) but outcomes have remained dismal despite this treatment. The addition of oral Temozolomide (TMZ) concurrently with RT followed by monthly TMZ was also found to be safe but ineffective. Recent studies in adults have shown that certain types of chemotherapy induce a profound but transient lymphopenia (low blood lymphocytes) and vaccinating and/or the adoptive transfer of tumor-specific lymphocytes into the cancer patient during this lymphopenic state leads to dramatic T cell expansion and potent immunologic and clinical responses. Therefore, patients in this study will either receive concurrent TMZ during RT and immunotherapy during and after maintenance cycles of dose-intensive TMZ (Group A) or focal radiotherapy alone and immunotherapy without maintenance DI TMZ (Group B). Immune responses during cycles of DC vaccination with or without DI TMZ will be evaluated in both treatment groups.

In this study, the investigators are testing improvement in survival outcomes in DIPG patients when stratified with MR perfusion score and treated with the said protocol. Newly diagnosed DIPG patients will undergo MRI perfusion study in addition to the usual MRI at diagnosis and will be stratified into hyperperfused or hypoperfused tumours. The hyperperfused patients will receive additional low dose Bevacizumab weekly with conventional standard radiotherapy. The hypo-perfused patients will receive ultra-low-dose radiotherapy fractionation equivalent to conventional RT biological dose.

This study is for patients with diffuse midline glioma, high grade glioma, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, medulloblastoma, or another rare brain cancer that expresses GD2. Because there is no standard treatment at this time, patients are asked to volunteer in a gene transfer research study using special immune cells called T cells. T cells are a type of white blood cell that help the body fight infection. This research study combines two different ways of fighting cancer: antibodies and T cells. Both antibodies and T cells have been used to treat cancer patients. They have shown promise but have not been strong enough to cure most patients. Researchers have found from previous research that they can put a new antibody gene into T cells that will make them recognize cancer cells and kill them. GD2 is a protein found on several different cancers. Researchers testing brain cancer cells found that many of these cancers also have GD2 on their surface. In a study for neuroblastoma in children, a gene called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) was made from an antibody that recognizes GD2. This gene was put into the patients' own T cells and given back to 11 patients. The cells did grow for a while but started to disappear from the blood after 2 weeks. The researchers think that if T cells are able to last longer they may have a better chance of killing tumor cells. In this study, a new gene will be added to the GD2 T cells that can cause the cells to live longer. T cells need substances called cytokines to survive. The gene C7R has been added that gives the cells a constant supply of cytokine and helps them to survive for a longer period of time. In other studies using T cells researchers found that giving chemotherapy before the T cell infusion can improve the amount of time the T cells stay in the body and therefore the effect the T cells can have. This is called lymphodepletion and it will allow the T cells to expand and stay longer in the body and potentially kill cancer cells more effectively. After treating 11 patients, the largest safe dose of GD2-CAR T cells given in the vein (IV) was determined. Going forward, IV infusions will be combined with infusions directly into the brain through the Ommaya reservoir or programmable VP shunt. The goal is to find the largest safe dose of GD2-C7R T cells that can be administered in this way. The GD2.C7R T cells are an investigational product not approved by the FDA.

This study will evaluate the safety of BXQ-350 and determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) in children with newly diagnosed DIPG or DMG. All patients will receive BXQ-350 by intravenous (IV) infusion and radiation therapy. The study is divided into two parts: Part 1 will enroll patients at increasing dose levels of BXQ-350 in order to determine the MTD. Part 2 will enroll patients requiring a biopsy in order to assess BXQ-350 concentrations in the biopsied tumor.

Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPGs), which diffusely occupy the pons of brainstem, are the deadliest primary brain cancer in children. Biopsy for pathology plus radiotherapy remains the current standard-of-care treatment that is minimal effective. Thus, the median overall survival after diagnosis is just 10 months. Recent studies have identified a lysine 27-to-methionine (K27M) somatic mutation at histone H3 variant (H3.3), as a feature mutation in DIPGs. Several preclinical studies have already demonstrated H3.3-K27M as a promising target for immunotherapy. The researched vaccine is a cancer-treatment vaccine containing an H3.3-K27M targeted neoantigen peptide, that can be taken up by antigen-presenting cells (APCs). APCs can present the peptide with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules on cell surface, thereby activating neoantigen-specific T cells and triggering corresponding cytotoxic T cell immune responses to eliminate H3.3-K27M-expressing DIPG cells. The main goal of this study is investigating the safety and preliminary efficacy of the vaccine in treating newly-diagnosed DIPGs when the vaccine is administered in combination with the standard-of-care treatment.

This is a phase I, open label, plus expansion clinical trial evaluating the safety and tolerability of rHSC-DIPGVax in combination with BALSTILIMAB and ZALIFRELIMAB. rHSC-DIPGVax is an off-the-shelf neo-antigen heat shock protein containing 16 peptides reflecting neo-epitopes found in the majority of DIPG and DMG tumors. Newly diagnosed patients with DIPG and DMG who have completed radiation six to ten weeks prior to enrollment are eligible.

This is a pilot study that will evaluate disease status in children that have been newly diagnosed high-grade glioma with TRK fusion. The evaluation will occur after 2 cycles of the medication (Larotrectinib) have been given. The study will also evaluate the safety of larotrectinib when given with chemotherapy in your children; as well as the safety larotrectinib when given post-focal radiation therapy.

This is a prospective, open-label, single arm, multicenter clinical study. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of combination Nimotuzumab with concurrent radiochemotherapy in children with newly diagnosed diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma(DIPG).

This is a study to determine the safety and efficacy of the drug, mebendazole, when used in combination with standard chemotherapy drugs for the treatment of pediatric brain tumors. Mebendazole is a drug used to treat infections with intestinal parasites and has a long track record of safety in humans. Recently, it was discovered that mebendazole may be effective in treating cancer as well, in particular brain tumors. Studies using both cell cultures and mouse models demonstrated that mebendazole was effective in decreasing the growth of brain tumor cells. This study focuses on the treatment of a category of brain tumors called gliomas. Low-grade gliomas are tumors arising from the glial cells of the central nervous system and are characterized by slower, less aggressive growth than that of high-grade gliomas. Some low-grade gliomas have a more aggressive biology and an increased likelihood of resistance or recurrence. Low-grade gliomas are often able to be treated by observation alone if they receive a total surgical resection. However, tumors which are only partially resected and continue to grow or cause symptoms, or those which recur following total resection require additional treatment, such as chemotherapy. Due to their more aggressive nature, pilomyxoid astrocytomas, even when totally resected, will often be treated with chemotherapy. The current first-line treatment at our institution for these low-grade gliomas involves a three-drug chemotherapy regimen of vincristine, carboplatin, and temozolomide. However, based on our data from our own historical controls, over 50% of patients with pilomyxoid astrocytomas will continue to have disease progression while on this treatment. We believe that mebendazole in combination with vincristine, carboplatin, and temozolomide may provide an additional therapeutic benefit with increased progression-free and overall survival for low-grade glioma patients, particularly for those with pilomyxoid astrocytomas. High grade gliomas are more aggressive tumors with poor prognoses. The standard therapy is radiation therapy. A variety of adjuvant chemotherapeutic combinations have been used, but with disappointing results. For high-grade gliomas this study will add mebendazole to the established combination of bevacizumab and irinotecan to determine this combinations safety and efficacy

This is a Phase 1 study of central nervous system (CNS) locoregional adoptive therapy with autologous CD4+ and CD8+ T cells lentivirally transduced to express a B7H3-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and EGFRt. CAR T cells are delivered via an indwelling catheter into the tumor resection cavity or ventricular system in children and young adults with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), diffuse midline glioma (DMG), and recurrent or refractory CNS tumors. A child or young adult meeting all eligibility criteria, including having a CNS catheter placed into the tumor resection cavity or into their ventricular system, and meeting none of the exclusion criteria, will have their T cells collected. The T cells will then be bioengineered into a second-generation CAR T cell that targets B7H3-expressing tumor cells. Patients will be assigned to one of 3 treatment arms based on location or type of their tumor. Patients with supratentorial tumors will be assigned to Arm A, and will receive their treatment into the tumor cavity. Patients with either infratentorial or metastatic/leptomeningeal tumors will be assigned to Arm B, and will have their treatment delivered into the ventricular system. The first 3 patients enrolled onto the study must be at least 15 years of age and assigned to Arm A or Arm B. Patients with DIPG will be assigned to Arm C and have their treatment delivered into the ventricular system. The patient's newly engineered T cells will be administered via the indwelling catheter for two courses. In the first course patients in Arms A and B will receive a weekly dose of CAR T cells for three weeks, followed by a week off, an examination period, and then another course of weekly doses for three weeks. Patients in Arm C will receive a dose of CAR T cells every other week for 3 weeks, followed by a week off, an examination period, and then dosing every other week for 3 weeks. Following the two courses, patients in all Arms will undergo a series of studies including MRI to evaluate the effect of the CAR T cells and may have the opportunity to continue receiving additional courses of CAR T cells if the patient has not had adverse effects and if more of their T cells are available. The hypothesis is that an adequate amount of B7H3-specific CAR T cells can be manufactured to complete two courses of treatment with 3 or 2 doses given on a weekly schedule followed by one week off in each course. The other hypothesis is that B7H3-specific CAR T cells can safely be administered through an indwelling CNS catheter or delivered directly into the brain via indwelling catheter to allow the T cells to directly interact with the tumor cells for each patient enrolled on the study. Secondary aims of the study will include evaluating CAR T cell distribution with the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the extent to which CAR T cells egress or traffic into the peripheral circulation or blood stream, and, if tissues samples from multiple timepoints are available, also evaluate disease response to B7-H3 CAR T cell locoregional therapy.