Active clinical trials for "Melanoma"

The purpose of this study is to determine whether Lipovaxin-MM, a new anti-cancer vaccine, is safe and effective in improving the body's ability to destroy cancer cells in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Given the poor prognosis and limited treatment options available for patients with mucosal or acral/lentiginous melanomas who develop metastatic disease, genetic discoveries of KIT mutations in these cancers present the need to test multi-targeted kinase inhibitors with potent KIT inhibitory activity in this patient population. Imatinib and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have the potential to be effective in this patient population, but patients may develop resistance to treatment. Therefore, in this study, we propose to test nilotinib in patients with metastatic mucosal, acral, or chronically sun-damaged melanoma following treatment with another TKI.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the clinical activity of the GSK2132231A immunotherapeutic in patients with MAGE-A3 positive unresectable metastatic melanoma presenting with the predictive gene signature.

The presence of malignant cells in lymph nodes is a critical parameter in the staging of melanoma cancer patients. Assessment of lymph nodes is currently done by histopathology alone. The long-term survival of melanoma cancer patients who have Stage IB disease (no known lymph node involvement with a tumor greater than 2 cm) is lower than patients who are Stage IA (no known lymph node involvement with a tumor less than 2 cm). Likewise, the survival rates of patients who are judged to be Stage II based on histologically positive level-one lymph nodes is often no better than that of higher stage patients who have level-two lymph node involvement. These observations suggest that micrometastases are often present in lymph nodes that are not detectable by histological assessment. The collection of Sentinel Lymph Nodes (SLN) and non SLN material outlined in this proposal will permit both targeted and exploratory studies, without compromising the patient's diagnosis, on specimens that represent central engines of the immune response and whose function in the context of tumor progression is largely unknown. With the advent of an array of new methodologies that utilize minimum material for both molecular and cellular assessments, acquiring up to 20% and in general the investigators anticipate the use of 5% on average of SLN and/or non SLN tissue for research purposes, may prove to be critical to understanding the impact of nodal tumor involvement on patient outcome and survival.

This phase II trial is studying the side effects of pazopanib hydrochloride and to see how well it works in treating patients with metastatic melanoma that cannot be removed by surgery. Pazopanib hydrochloride 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.

The purpose of this study is to test the safety of an investigational combination drug/immunotherapy for the treatment of Stage III/IV melanoma.

RATIONALE: Vaccines made from gene-modified tumor cells may help the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of vaccine therapy in treating patients with metastatic melanoma.

This is a two-part study to test the safety, tolerability, and immune response for V934/V935 vaccine using a new prime-boost regimen in participants with selected solid tumors.

The goal of this clinical research study is to find the best dosing schedule of a combined treatment of PEG Intron® (pegylated Interferon-alfa 2b) plus a peptide vaccine (gp100) that may help improve immune response in patients that had Stage II or Stage III melanoma and are free of the disease. The safety and tolerability of this drug combination will also be studied. Researchers also want to collect long-term follow-up information.

The goal of this clinical research study is to learn if temozolomide alone or given with pegylated interferon alpha-2b can help to control metastatic melanoma. Researchers also want to study the safety of these 2 treatments. Objectives: To determine the anti-tumor activity (pathological response CR+PR) and toxicity of temozolomide (TMZ) alone or in combination with pegylated interferon alpha-2b (PGI) in patients with resectable stage IIIC or stage IV (M1a) metastatic melanoma prior to definitive surgical resection. To determine the relapse-free survival, overall survival and the impact of tumor response to chemotherapy in these patients. To differentiate the in vivo treatment effects of TMZ alone vs.TMZ plus PGI and correlate with clinical outcome by analysis the pre- and post-treatment tumors and peripheral blood mononuclear cells with respect to: 1) Known cellular and molecular markers of apoptosis and cell proliferation, 2) Promotor methylation status of the DNA repair enzyme O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), 3) DNA sequence variability of tumor suppressor genes and DNA repair enzymes, 4) Tumor genomic expression profiles analysis by complementary DNA (cDNA) microarray and protein array