Active clinical trials for "Fanconi Anemia"

This clinical trial studies widefield fluorescence and reflectance imaging, fluorescence spectroscopy, and tissue samples in regularly examining (monitoring) participants at risk for developing oral cancer. All tissue and cells are made of tiny particles. Some of these particles give off small amounts of light. This light is called fluorescence. Fluorescent imaging use instruments that shine different wavelengths (colors) of light in the mouth taking fluorescence pictures through a portable head light or by taking fluorescent and reflectance pictures through a dental microscope using a digital camera. Fluorescent spectroscopy uses a small probe placed gently against the lining of the mouth and the tissue is exposed to small amounts of fluorescent light that is then collected with a special camera and a computer to be analyzed. Checking mouth tissue samples under a microscope may also help detect abnormal cells. Diagnostic procedures, such as fluorescence and reflectance imaging, fluorescence spectroscopy imaging, and tissue samples, may help doctors detect pre-cancer or early cancer when it may be easier to treat.

The goal of this study is to see if the study therapy can decrease the chemotherapy-related side effects while maximizing the effectiveness of disease control. The physicians will also be studying the effect of removing T-cells from the donor"s stem cells before transplant. T-cells are a type of white blood cell that may help cause a serious side effect of transplant called Graft versus Host Disease (GVHD). The way it removes the T-cells from the donor stem cells is actually by selecting only the stem cells (called CD34 cells) by using a device called CliniMACS. This process is called CD34 selection. The CliniMACS® device is currently under the supervision of the FDA .

This is a long-term follow up study evaluating the safety of BPX-501 T cells (rivogenlecleucel) and infused in pediatric patients previously enrolled on the BP-004 study.

Allogeneic blood and marrow transplantation remains the only viable cure for children who suffer from many serious non-malignant hematological diseases. Transplantation, however, carries a high risk of fatal complications. Much of the risk stems from the use of high dose radiation and chemotherapy for conditioning, the treatment administered just prior to transplant that eliminates the patients' marrow and immune system, effectively preventing rejection of the donors' cells. Attempts to make blood and marrow transplantation safer for children with non-malignant diseases by using lower doses of radiation and chemotherapy have largely failed because of a high rate of graft rejection. In many such cases, it is likely that the graft is rejected because the recipient is sensitized to proteins on donor cells, including bone marrow cells, by blood transfusions. The formation of memory immune cells is a hallmark of sensitization, and these memory cells are relatively insensitive to chemotherapy and radiation. Alefacept, a drug used to treat psoriasis, on the other hand, selectively depletes these cells. The investigators are conducting a pilot study to begin to determine whether incorporating alefacept into a low dose conditioning regimen can effectively mitigate sensitization and, thereby, prevent rejection of allogeneic blood and marrow transplants for multiply transfused children with non-malignant hematological diseases.

Fanconi anemia (FA) and Dyskeratosis congenita (DC) are inherited bone marrow failure syndromes. The current androgen treatments (e.g., oxymetholone) used to treat FA and DC can cause unwanted masculinizing side effects, indicating a need for a different medication. Danazol is a less potent androgen,and may therefore have fewer masculinizing side effects. Danazol is currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of other diseases, but it has never been studied in patients with FA and DC. The main purpose of this study is to see if danazol is a safe treatment for FA and DC. Specifically,we would like to determine: the best dose of danazol; how fast hemoglobin (a protein that carries oxygen in the blood) levels rise in FA and DC patients receiving danazol therapy; and the genetic pattern (known as expression profile) of certain cells in response to danazol, which can predict how well people respond to the medication. Subjects who enroll in the study will be treated with danazol for up to 24 weeks (about 6 months), and will have up to 11 study visits, including followup visits at 38 weeks (9 months) and 52 weeks (one year).

RATIONALE: Giving chemotherapy and total-body irradiation before a donor umbilical cord blood transplant helps stop the growth of cancer and abnormal cells and helps stop the patient's immune system from rejecting the donor's stem cells. When the stem cells from a related or unrelated donor, that do not exactly match the patient's blood, are infused into the patient they may help the patient's bone marrow to make stem cells, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying how well donor umbilical cord blood transplant works in treating patients with hematologic cancer.

The purpose of this study is to discover whether children and adults with Fanconi anemia (FA) can be safely and effectively transplanted with Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) mismatched (up to one haplotype), HLA-matched sibling, or unrelated donor stem cells, when leukocytolytic monoclonal antibodies are the sole conditioning agents (patients receiving an HLA mismatched transplant will receive Fludarabine as part of the conditioning regimen). Three monoclonal antibodies (MAb) will be used in combination. Two of them, YTH 24 and YTH 54 are rat antibodies directed against two contiguous epitopes on the CD45 (common leucocyte) antigen. They have been safely administered as part of the conditioning regimen for 12 patients receiving allografts (HLA matched and mismatched) at this center. They produce a transient depletion of >90% circulating leucocytes. The third MAb is Campath 1H, a humanized rat anti-CD52 MAb. This MAb has been widely used to treat B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) and more recently has been safely given at this and other centers as part of a sub-ablative conditioning regimen to patients with malignant disease. Because these MAb produce both profound immunosuppression and significant, though transient, myelodestruction we believe they may be useful as the sole conditioning regimen in patients with Fanconi anemia, in whom the use of conventional chemotherapeutic agents for conditioning produces a high rate of short and long term toxicity. We anticipate MAb mediated subablative conditioning will permit engraftment in a high percentage of these patients with little or no immediate or long term toxicity. Campath IH persists in vivo for several days after administration and so will be present over the transplant period to deplete donor T cells as partial graft versus host disease (GvHD) prophylaxis. Additional GvHD prophylaxis will be provided by administration of the medication FK506.

While stem cell transplantation has proven an effective means of treating a wide variety of diseases involving hematopoietic stem cells and their progeny, a shortage of donors has proved a major impediment to the widest application of the approach. Until recently, only MHC identical donors could be used with safety. Such donors were originally siblings or other closely related family members. Over the past decade, the growth of allogeneic donor panels has allowed transplantation with stem cells obtained from a volunteer donor panel. While it is now possible to obtain HLA identical unrelated donor stem cells for approximately 75% of individuals of Northern European backgrounds, the situation for most other ethnic groups is much less satisfactory. Even when a matched donor can be found, the elapsed time between commencing the search and collecting the stem cells usually exceeds three months, a delay that may doom many of the neediest patients. Hence there has been considerable interest in making use of HLA haploidentical family donors. Most individuals have a first-degree relative who would be suitable for such protocols. Fanconi anemia (FA) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by the development of progressive aplastic anemia usually evident by about age seven years and often associated with various diverse congenital anomalies such as short stature, microcephaly, radial anomalies, horseshoe kidney, and cafe au lait spots. This study will determine the number of donor lymphocytes that can be given to recipients of haploidentical stem cell transplants with Fanconi anemia after depletion of recipient-reactive T lymphocytes by ex-vivo treatment with a fixed dose of RFT5-dgA immunotoxin, and will result in a rate of Grade III/IV GVHD of < / = 25%.

This study will evaluate pediatric patients with malignant or non-malignant blood cell disorders who are having a blood stem cell transplant depleted of T cell receptor (TCR) alfa and beta cells that comes from a partially matched family donor. The study will assess whether immune cells, called T cells, from the family donor, that are specially grown in the laboratory and given back to the patient along with the stem cell transplant can help the immune system recover faster after transplant. As a safety measure these T cells have been programmed with a self-destruct switch so that they can be destroyed if they start to react against tissues (Graft versus host disease).

The purpose of this study is to determine whether thymic shielding during total body irradiation can be given and whether it will reduce the risk of infections in Fanconi Anemia patients undergoing alternate donor (not a matched sibling) stem cell transplants.