Active clinical trials for "Esophageal Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Diagnostic procedures, such as endoscopic ultrasound, may help doctors learn the extent of stomach cancer or esophageal cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized clinical trial is studying how well endoscopic ultrasound works in diagnosing cancer in patients with localized stomach cancer or esophageal cancer.

The purpose of this study is to test the drug bevacizumab in combination with cetuximab. Because this combination has not been tested in cancer patients before, results will be analyzed to see what effects the combination of bevacizumab with cetuximab has on esophageal cancer.

This a pilot clinical study focused on enhancing the patient's anti-tumor immune response in individuals with esophageal cancer by altering the genetic repertoire of the tumors to express CD40L, an activator of dendritic cells. This will be accomplished by endoscopic administration to the tumors of AdcuCD40L, an adenovirus gene transfer vector expressing the coding sequence of the human CD40L cDNA. This study is designed to assess the hypothesis that it is safe to administer the AdcuCD40L vector to individuals with esophageal cancer.

RATIONALE: Imaging procedures, such as fludeoxyglucose F 18 positron emission tomography (PET) scans, may improve the ability to detect lung and esophageal cancer or their recurrence. PURPOSE: Phase II/III trial to study the effectiveness of fludeoxyglucose F 18 PET scans in measuring response to induction chemotherapy in patients with esophageal and lung cancer that may be removed by surgery.

Despite improvement in treatment-related morbidity and mortality, esophageal cancer is still one of the most lethal malignancies. Accurate staging is essential to establish prognosis and for patient management. Staging helps to determine if surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, a combination of these, or a palliative approach is the most appropriate. Endoscopic ultrasound techniques are becoming more and more popular. At Notre Dame Hospital, Centre Hospitalier de L'Universite de Montreal, all patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer undergo complete EUS staging. In selected patients, EUS is followed by EBUS during the same procedure, in order to examine all the lymph nodes near or far from the primary tumor amenable to EBUS guided trans-bronchial biopsy. In patients with a malignant esophageal stricture, we have preformed very gentle balloon dilation up to 14 mm. It is important to realize that this is not to achieve symptom resolution, but rather to allow the passage of the scope. We hypothesize that earlier reports of higher perforation rates were related to unnecessary aggressive dilation. Thus far, we have successfully dilated over 60 patients during the last four years (2009-2013) and were able to pass the scope and complete the examination in the vast majority of patients with no morbidity.

There are no standard chemotherapy regimens for metastatic esophageal cancer. Cisplatin plus 5-fluorouracil is widely used as first-line treatment with a response rate ranged from 30% to 40%. Combination of paclitaxel and cisplatin has been investigated in small size clinical trial, producing promising outcome.Liposome capsuled paclitaxel has been proved to be as effective as paclitaxel.The usefulness of the the regimen of paclitaxel liposome with cisplatin is evaluated by median survival time, progression free survival,and response rate.

The investigators are doing this research program to find out if the investigational drug, afatinib which is a medication known to block the function of the ErbB2 protein might help standard chemotherapy, in particular paclitaxel, work better. Afatinib (GILOTRIF) is a highly potent, irreversible inhibitor of the EGFR and HER2. On July 12, 2013 the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) approved afatinib for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer whose tumors had specific EGFR gene mutations (exon 19 deletions or exon 21 i.e. L858R substitution mutations) as detected by an FDA approved test. Paclitaxel is a standard, anti-cancer medicine that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of lung cancer. The combination of Afatinib and Paclitaxel are considered investigational when used in this research program. An investigational drug is a drug that is not approved by the FDA for its indication.

There have been reports suggesting that anti-epidermal growth factor antibody nimotuzumab is advantageous for advanced esophageal cancer patients in combination with chemotherapy or radiotherapy.And,albumin-bound paclitaxel was characterized with high tolerated doses with greater efficacy,and with greater concentration in tumor tissue compared with normal tissues.So,The objective of this single-arm phase II trial was to evaluate the benefit of nimotuzumab plus nab-paclitaxel and cisplatin in patients with advanced esophageal carcinoma.

The goal of this clinical research study is to learn about ways to possibly reduce scanning errors when using 4-dimensional computed tomography (4D CT) scans to check lung function in patients with esophageal or lung cancer.

Open-label, single-center phase 1 study of an investigational agent TH-302 and standard chemoradiotherapy with a 3+3 dose escalation design through 3 dose levels.