Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

In a phase I protocol to primarily investigate the safety of using calcium combined with electroporation on recurrent head and neck cancers. Secondly, to evaluate tumour response on PET/MRI (positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging), clinical evaluation, biopsies. Thirdly, to evaluate the effect of calcium electroporation compared to electrochemotherapy as well as the patients life-of-quality through questionnaires, EORTC QLQ C-30 and H&N35 (european organisation for research and treatment of cancer).

Introduction: Patients with primary unresectable advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) have a poor prognosis with a median survival of 22 months (Hauswald H Radiat Oncol 2011). They are usually treated with induction chemotherapy followed by radiochemotherapy or platinum-based concomitant radiochemotherapy. Most patients achieve an objective clinical response contrasting with a high rate of local recurrence and distant metastases in the year following radiochemotherapy (Argiris A Ann Oncol 2011). Improvement of the efficacy of chemotherapy remains therefore a major clinical goal for this group of patients. During the past years, the investigators demonstrated that some conventional chemotherapeutics (anthracycline, oxaliplatin…) induce a type of "immunogenic" cell death (ICD) characterized by the exposure of calreticulin on the tumor cell surface, the secretion of ATP and the release of high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) resulting in activation of tumor immunity (Galluzzi L Nat Rev Drug Discov 2012). The investigators recently showed that the Na/K-ATPase inhibitor, digoxin, favors ICD, when combined with cisplatin, a drug known not to induce ICD. In preclinical models, a synergy between cisplatin and digoxin which led to a significant therapeutic improvement (Menger L Sci Transl Med 2012) has been observed. This effect seems to be mediated by the immune system as the combined therapy induced intratumor T cell infiltration producing cytokines (Menger L Sci Transl Med 2012). Hypothesis: Based on our preclinical data, the hypothesis is that adding digoxin to the conventional cisplatin based induction chemotherapy regimen in unresectable advanced HNSCC will increase the efficacy of this therapy via the induction of anti-tumor immunity. Objectives: Main: the primary objective is to assess the clinical and biological safety of the combination of digoxin to cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Secondary: The secondary objectives are to investigate biological markers of efficacy by analyzing the recruitment of functional T cells in tumour biopsies after treatment with the combination of digoxin and chemotherapy.

Clinical experience of with hyperthermia combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy for recurrent head and neck cancer is limited. The primary goals of hyperthermia combined with CCRT on recurrent head and neck cancer are tumor response rate, while secondary goals are rates of acute and late adverse effects, local control rate, distant metastasis rate, progression-free rate and overall survival rate.

Recently, sorafenib which can target VEGFR and PDGFR demonstrated 13-16% of response rate in patients with recurrent/metastatic salivary gland cancers, suggesting that VEGFR and PDGFR might be important role in salivary gland cancers. Accordingly, several trials with various anti-angiogenic molecular targeted agents such as dasatinib, dovitinib, or sunitinib in salivary gland cancer are ongoing. Nintedanib (BIBF1120) is a potent small molecule triple receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (PDGFR/ FGFR1-2 and VEGFR1-3). VEGFR-2 is considered to be the crucial receptor involved in initiation of the formation as well as the maintenance of tumor vasculature. In vitro, the target receptors are all inhibited by nintedanib in low nanomolar concentrations. In in vivo nude mouse models, nintedanib showed good anti-tumor efficacy at doses of 50-100mg/kg, leading to a substantial delay of tumor growth or even complete tumor stasis in xenografts of a broad range of differing human tumors. Based on this background, in this study, the investigators would like to conduct a phase II study of Nintedanib (BIBF 1120) in patients with recurrent or metastatic salivary gland cancer of the head and neck to evaluate efficacy and safety.

The primary purpose of this study is to see if it is safe to give patients with pancreatic or head and neck cancer a low dose of the FDA approved anesthetic drug ketamine at the same time they receive radiation and/or chemotherapy for their cancer treatment to prevent depression and its effects. Researchers would also like to see if giving ketamine at the same time as cancer treatment is practical and reasonably acceptable to the patient. New onset depression is highly frequent in those with head and neck cancer, and depression has many negative consequences for outcomes in those patients. Depression has been known to have greater incidence in pancreatic cancer patients than in patients with other malignancies. Therefore, investigators would also like to see if giving patients ketamine during their routine cancer treatment will prevent the onset of depression and its negative effects on cancer treatment outcomes, and also help with anxiety, pain, and quality of life. The study will also use a placebo to compare to the good and/or bad effects of ketamine. A placebo is not an active drug and it will be look the same as ketamine, as a liquid to be taken by mouth. Ketamine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a general anesthetic by itself for some diagnostic and surgical procedures or combined with other general anesthetic agents. It has also been shown to reduce cancer pain. Ketamine is considered experimental in this study because it is not approved by the FDA for the prevention of depression.

This study will investigate the efficacy and safety of recombinant human endostatin adenovirus combined with chemotherapy for advanced head and neck malignant tumors.

This study will compare TNFE-NBI and biopsy, with DRE and biopsy for the diagnostic evaluation and staging of patients with suspicious UADT lesions. All patients enrolled in the study will undergo TNFE-NBI with biopsy of suspicious lesions prior to planned regular clinical care (DRE). Biopsies will be evaluated by standard clinical methods for patient diagnoses and care. As the current standard of care, if all biopsies for a given patient are non-malignant, a 3 month office visit will be arranged to evaluate and determine the need for further intervention. At the end of study enrollment both sets of biopsies will be re-evaluated in a blinded fashion by the surgical pathologist. Study assessment of malignant vs. non-malignant (benign) pathology will be used to see whether both tests tended to agree on diagnoses.

To examine the safety and toxicity of concurrent radiotherapy with cisplatin with the further addition of cetuximab experimental treatment

Chemotherapy treatment with platinum based agents is well noted to cause ototoxicity. It is the objective of this study to determine the safety and efficacy of SPI-1005 at three dose levels when delivered orally twice daily for 3 days, surrounding each cycle of platinum chemotherapy in head and neck or non-small cell lung cancer patients to prevent and treat chemotherapy induced hearing loss and tinnitus.

RATIONALE: Everolimus may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth and by blocking blood flow to the tumor. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well everolimus works in treating patients with progressive or recurrent, unresectable, or metastatic thyroid cancer.