Active clinical trials for "Multiple Myeloma"

RATIONALE: Giving chemotherapy before a donor bone marrow transplant helps stop the growth of cancer and abnormal cells and helps stop the patient's immune system from rejecting the donor's stem cells. When the healthy stem cells from a donor are infused into the patient they may help the patient's bone marrow make stem cells, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Sometimes the transplanted cells from a donor can make an immune response against the body's normal cells. Giving cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate mofetil, or tacrolimus after transplant may stop this from happening. PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying how well giving combination chemotherapy together with tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil works in treating patients who are undergoing a donor bone marrow transplant for hematologic cancer.

The main objective of this study is to assess the efficacy of SCIOS-469 as monotherapy in relapsed, refractory patients with multiple myeloma (MM), based on response rates.

RATIONALE: Giving low doses of chemotherapy, such as melphalan and fludarabine, and a monoclonal antibody, such as alemtuzumab, before a donor bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell transplant helps stop the growth of cancer cells. It also stops the patient's immune system from rejecting the donor's stem cells. The donated stem cells may replace the patient's immune system and help destroy any remaining cancer cells (graft-versus-tumor effect). Sometimes the transplanted cells from a donor can also make an immune response against the body's normal cells. Giving cyclosporine after the transplant may stop this from happening. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well fludarabine, melphalan, alemtuzumab, and peripheral stem cell transplant work in treating patients with hematologic cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop cancer cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Vaccines made from a person's cancer cells may make the body build an immune response to kill cancer cells. Peripheral stem cell transplantation may be able to replace immune cells that were destroyed by chemotherapy. Combining chemotherapy with vaccine therapy and peripheral stem cell transplantation may be effective in treating multiple myeloma. PURPOSE: Phase I/II trial to study the effectiveness of chemotherapy followed by vaccine therapy and peripheral stem cell transplantation in treating patients who have newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

RATIONALE: Vaccines made from a person's tumor cells may make the body build an immune response and kill their tumor cells. Peripheral stem cell transplantation may be able to replace immune cells that were destroyed by chemotherapy used to kill tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of peripheral stem cell transplantation plus vaccine therapy and chemotherapy in treating patients who have multiple myeloma.

The purpose of this research is to study how helpful the combination of thalidomide and Pamidronate or thalidomide and Zometa is in controlling the myeloma disease and to study any side effects.

The purpose of this research is to study how helpful thalidomide is in controlling the myeloma disease and to study any side effect resulting from thalidomide.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of thalidomide for the treatment of cancer. Patients with many types of cancers will be enrolled because the researchers will also study how the different cancers respond and what kind of side effects patients will experience.

There have been two previous Total Therapy studies for multiple myeloma (MM) at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy (MIRT): Total Therapy I (from 1989 through 1994) and Total Therapy II (from 1996 to 2004). Results have shown that patients treated on these studies had better outcomes (meaning patients have lived longer and had better responses to treatment) when compared to patients treated with standard chemotherapy. With this new study, Total Therapy III, researchers will take what they have learned from the first two studies and add new treatment strategies to try to improve the outcomes even more, especially for patients with chromosome abnormalities.

RATIONALE: Peripheral stem cell transplantation may be able to replace immune cells that were destroyed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy used to kill tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase I trial to study the effectiveness of treated donor stem cell transplantation in treating patients who have hematologic cancer.