Active clinical trials for "Melanoma"

Marqibo (liposomal vincristine) is a form of vincristine preparation. Vincristine is designed to interfere with the multiplication of cancer cells, which may slow or stop their growing and spreading throughout the body. This may cause the cancer cells to die. Liposomal vincristine is formed when vincristine is placed inside of oil droplets called liposomes, which may help to improve the delivery of drug to the tumor site. The liposomal formulation results in a slow, steady release of vincristine in the tumor metastasis, exposing the cancer cells to vincristine continuously. The goal of this clinical research study is to learn if Marqibo (liposomal vincristine) can help to control metastatic uveal melanoma. The safety of liposomal vincristine will also be studied. Approximately 50 patients will take part in this study.

RATIONALE: BI 2536 may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying the side effects and how well BI 2536 works in treating patients with recurrent or metastatic solid tumors.

Evaluate the antitumor activity of hu14.18-IL2 in the minimal residual disease setting. Evaluate the time to recurrence and overall survival of patients treated with hu14.18-IL2.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate how effective Sunitinib works in treating acral lentiginous and mucosal melanoma which has spread beyond the local region. Suninitib is a protein-tyrosine kinase inhibitor and acts as a c-kit inhibitor drug. It is believed to work by blocking signals on certain cancer cells which allow the malignant cells to multiply and spread due to a change in the genetic make up of the cancer cell.

The purpose of this study is to find out how effective an investigational drug named ZK-Epo is against melanoma. Although ZK-Epo has been studied in the treatment of cancer, it is not approved for use in treating melanoma. This research is being done because currently there are only a limited number of treatment options for patients who have melanoma that has spread to distant organs. We expect each patient to be in this study for at least 2 cycles. One cycle lasts for 21 days. If their tumor does not grow after 2 cycles and they do not have any major side-effects, they may receive up to 6 cycles of ZK-Epo. If after they have received 6 cycles of ZK-Epo and their doctor determines that the tumor is continuing to shrink, they will continue treatment with ZK-Epo. The number of treatments the patient receives after 6 cycles will depend upon when their doctor feels there has been maximum tumor response (tumor shrinkage). Two treatments will be given beyond what their doctor considers the point of maximum shrinkage. We estimate that they will spend anywhere from 1 1/2 months to 5 months taking part in this study.

The main purpose of this research study is to compare the safety, tolerability, and anti tumor activity of an investigational drug, ABI-007 versus Dacarbazine in patients with metastatic melanoma who have not previously received chemotherapy. ABI-007 is a new preparation of the active drug paclitaxel. It contains the same medication as the prescription chemotherapy drug Abraxane®. Abraxane® is approved by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy for metastatic disease or relapse within 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy. Dacarbazine is approved by the FDA for the treatment of melanoma. In this study, ABI-007 and Dacarbazine will be tested as therapy for people who have not yet had any cancer treatment for the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma.

This phase II trial is studying how well MEK inhibitor AZD6244 works in treating patients with stage III or stage IV melanoma. MEK inhibitor AZD6244 may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth.

The goal of this clinical research is to find the highest tolerable dose of Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel) when given directly to the area where the cancer is located. The safety of this drug will also be studied.

The clinical objective of this clinical trial is to examine the clinical activity in terms of tumor response and time to treatment failure of the immunotherapeutic product GSK2132231A when given to patients with unresectable and progressive metastatic cutaneous melanoma. The safety of the treatment will also be assessed just as its immunogenicity in terms of the humoral and cellular immune response induced by the GSK2132231A immunotherapeutic. Translational research objectives are to assess the effects of the study treatment in terms of various biological variables.

Dendritic cells (DC) are the professional antigen presenting cells of the immune system. Multiple distinct DC lineage's exist and it is now well appreciated that the DC subset and the maturation stage of the DC determines the type of immune response, ranging from a TH1 or TH2 response to immune tolerance. The extremely potent capacity of mature DC to initiate immune responses can be exploited to fight infectious diseases and cancer. Others and we are currently using tumor antigen loaded mature DC in clinical vaccination studies against cancer, and clinical as well as immunological responses have been observed. Exciting new insights accompany the revival of suppressor T cells, now referred to as regulatory T cells (Treg), and implicate that also Treg play a key role in the control of immunity. Treg constitute a sub-population of CD4+ T cells constitutively expressing the IL-2R alpha-chain (CD25). Treg show remarkably suppressive activities on different components of the immune system, including T lymphocytes and dendritic cells, suggesting they act both at the initiation phase (DC) and at the effector phase (activated T cells) of the immune response. Interestingly, temporal depletion of Treg has been shown to enhance anti-tumor immune responses and in case of prolonged absence of Treg even autoimmunity. Furthermore, data in mouse tumor models indicate that temporal depletion of Treg also results in improved vaccine efficiency in the therapeutic setting, e.g. in mice with a pre-existing tumor. These data imply that in tumor bearing patients depletion of Treg prior to vaccination will improve vaccine efficacy. In this study we investigate the effect of regulatory T cell (Treg) depletion on the efficacy of DC-based anti-tumor vaccines in a clinical study using melanoma associated antigens tyrosinase and gp100-loaded DC and a depleting anti-CD25 mononuclear antibody (Daclizumab). Our primary objective in this study is the induction of an effective anti-tumor immune response. Our secondary objective is the induction of a clinical response.