Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Studying samples of blood and urine in the laboratory from patients with cancer receiving bevacizumab may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to high blood pressure. PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying potential biomarkers for bevacizumab-induced high blood pressure in patients with malignant solid tumors, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, or primary peritoneal carcinoma.

The purpose of this trial is to determine what will be the optimal imaging protocol for Head and Neck Cancer patients after [F-18] HX4 injection. This study will provide guidance for future studies involving [F-18]HX4 in cancer patients.

This study is to evaluate disease control rate (DCR) at 8 weeks of BKM120 administered as therapy for patient with recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of paclitaxel in treating patients with recurrent or refractory head and neck cancer.

Endoscopy is a standard part of the evaluation of patients with head and neck cancer used for determining the extent of tumor involvement. However, not all areas involved by tumor are apparent visually. Preliminary results indicate that compared with normal tissues, tumors have abnormal levels of capillary oxygenation. The purpose of this study is to determine the ability of non-pulsatile visible light tissue oxygen monitoring to differentiate normal and tumor tissue based on capillary oxygenation during endoscopy Should this be possible, this method could be used to mark tumor extent and invasion, even when that invasion is up to 5mm blow the tissue surface.

chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-induced oral mucositis represents a therapeutic challenge frequently encountered in cancer patients.This side effect causes significant morbidity and may delay or interrupt the treatment plan, as well reduce therapeutic index. cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2) is an inducible enzyme primarily expressed in inflamed tissues and tumor. COX-2 inhibitors have shown promise as radio- and chemosensitizer and reduce radio-induced toxicities. we have conducted a phase III, randomized double blind clinical trial to evaluate the toxicity and efficacy of celecoxib, a selective COX-2 inhibitor, administered concurrently with chemotherapy, and radiation for locally advanced head and neck cancer.

RATIONALE: Surgery may be an effective treatment for oral cancer. It is not yet known whether surgery to remove the tumor and lymph nodes in the neck is more effective than surgery to remove the tumor alone in treating patients with early-stage oral cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized clinical trial is comparing two types of neck surgery to see how well they work in treating patients with early stage oral cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine and carboplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving an infusion of a person's T lymphocytes that have been treated in the laboratory may help the body build an effective immune response to kill tumor cells. Giving combination chemotherapy together with laboratory-treated T lymphocytes may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving gemcitabine and carboplatin together with laboratory-treated T lymphocytes works in treating patients with metastatic or locally recurrent Epstein-Barr virus-positive nasopharyngeal cancer.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) - magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion-weighted (DW)-MRI, and fludeoxyglucose - positron emission tomography - computed tomography (FDG-PET-CT) are three modalities that generate non-invasive, functional images of tumors and normal tissues based on physiologic properties including perfusion, vascular permeability and glucose metabolism. Demonstrating that these parameters are associated with clinical outcome, either efficacy or toxicity, could enhance the ability to select patients for different treatment strategies and improve the therapeutic ratio.

This project defines the effect on swallowing of intensity modulation during radiotherapy in an organ preservation treatment involving chemoradiation for 125 oral, laryngeal, and pharyngeal cancer patients with previously untreated Stage III or IV disease and to identify optimum treatment strategies. The specific aims are: 1) define the physiologic effects of chemoradiotherapy with IMRT to various sites in the upper aerodigestive/vocal tract including the cervical esophagus and the rate at which patients return to oral intake; 2) document the acute toxicities, late complications, locoregional failure and survival, and the relationship between fibrosis rating and the measure of laryngeal elevation; 3) determine whether the patient's swallowing mechanism can compensate for physiologic deficits in swallowing by introduction of interventions (postural changes, voluntary swallow maneuvers, several bolus volumes); 4) determine whether time to return to oral intake, effects of swallow maneuvers and/or volume, presence of an esophageal stricture and the duration of success of dilatation depends on radiation dose volume to specific structures in the head and neck; 5) define the relationship of tongue base pressure to development of esophageal stricture. Patients will be accrued from Northwestern University and University of Chicago. Effects are defined in terms of swallowing function, morbidity, toxicity and survival. Other outcome measures are the maintenance of voluntary control (flexibility) of the oropharyngeal region as indicated by the ability to correctly produce swallow maneuvers; and positive changes in cricopharyngeal opening duration with normal bolus volume shifts. Patients will be studied pretreatment, and at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months post completion of chemoradiation. At each assessment, patients will receive a videofluoroscopic assessment of swallowing utilizing a standard protocol, assessment of xerostomia, mucositis, and fibrosis as well as assessment of disease status and quality of life scales. Head and neck cancer is a severe problem that affects public health. Most current treatments are a combination of radiotherapy with chemotherapy, which can result in severe swallowing problems which may make patients unwilling to accept this type of treatment. This project attempts to quantify the swallow problems associated with this specific treatment and the effects of interventions for these swallow problems.