Active clinical trials for "Myelodysplastic Syndromes"

The goal of this clinical research study is to find out if Procrit (epoetin alfa) will help decrease the need for blood transfusions in patients who have Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) or High-risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) and are receiving chemotherapy. Researchers also want to learn about the remission rates (rates of recovery) in patients with cancer who have received treatment with epoetin alfa. The safety and effectiveness of this therapy will also be studied.

RATIONALE: An Opioid Titration Order Sheet that allows healthcare providers to adjust the dose and schedule of pain medication may help improve pain treatment for patients with cancer. It is not yet known whether the use of an Opioid Titration Order Sheet is more effective than standard care in treating pain caused by cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying an Opioid Titration Order Sheet to see how well it works compared with standard care in treating patients with cancer pain.

RATIONALE: Baclofen-amitriptyline-ketamine (BAK) gel may lessen peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapy. It is not yet known whether BAK gel is more effective than a placebo in treating peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapy . PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying BAK gel to see how well it works compared with a placebo in treating peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapy in patients with cancer.

About 90% of patients with haemato-oncologic malignancy lose their body muscle mass and also lose weight either due to chemotherapy induced nausea/vomiting or the high catabolic state due to fever, sepsis or chemotherapy. This impacts tremendously on the days in hospital and also on the treatment-related complications. Studies with Human Growth hormone (hGH) have shown that it increases lean body mass in adult patients with AIDS and animal models of cancer. At the same time, in vitro studies have shown that hGH has no effect on tumor cell growth. This study is designed to see if the use of hGH in immunocompromised patients with haematological malignancies prevents the loss of muscle mass and weight loss to some extent. This will be a blinded 1:1, randomised study including 150 patients whereby the patients will either receive hGH or a placebo. The doctors and the nurses will not know what drug the patient is receiving. Both hGH and the placebo will be given intravenously (if patients are receiving other intravenous antibiotics or haemopoietic support ) or subcutaneously (if platelets are above 20 x 109/L) The treatment will start on the first day of treatment and continue for 6 weeks.

RATIONALE: Amifostine may improve blood counts in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of amifostine in treating patients with myelodysplastic syndrome.

RATIONALE: Understanding the emotional needs of spouses or others who are living with and caring for patients who have undergone stem cell transplantation may help improve the quality of life of both the caregivers and the patients. PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying the emotional needs of caregivers of patients who have undergone stem cell transplant.

RATIONALE: Voriconazole may be effective in preventing systemic fungal infections following chemotherapy. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of voriconazole in preventing systemic fungal infections in children who have neutropenia after receiving chemotherapy for leukemia, lymphoma, or aplastic anemia or in preparation for bone marrow or stem cell transplantation.

This study will evaluate the safety of autologous T cells that have been immunized ex vivo with patient-specific MDS stem cell neoantigens in patients with MDS.

THINK (THerapeutic Immunotherapy with NKR-2) is a multinational (EU/US) open-label Phase I study to assess the safety and clinical activity of multiple administrations of autologous NKR-2 cells in seven refractory cancers, including five solid tumors (colorectal, ovarian, bladder, triple-negative breast and pancreatic cancers) and two hematological tumors (acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma).

Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is widely recognized as a clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorder. Decitabine has been approved for the treatment of all subtypes of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). However, the use of decitabine is often limited by its severe toxicity represented by myelosuppression even at relatively low doses. In lower-risk patients (including IPSS low and int-1 risk groups), treatment mainly aims at improving cytopenias, especially anemia. However, although several drugs may improve anemia, sometimes durably, most of lower risk MDS eventually require red blood cell (RBC) transfusions during their disease course. Long term RBC transfusions lead to iron overload mainly due to an increase in reticulo-endothelial iron recycling.Cardiac, liver and endocrine (diabetes mellitus) dysfunction due to iron overload and often leading to fatal outcome has been reported in heavily transfused lower risk MDS patients. To date, the optimal regimen for decitabine treatment is not well established. In this study, we perform a prospective analysis to explore the decitabine schedule for the treatment of lower risk myelodysplastic syndrome patients with transfusion dependent.