Active clinical trials for "Pancreatic Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Stereotactic radiation therapy may be able to send x-rays directly to the tumor and cause less damage to normal tissue. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine and oxaliplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving stereotactic radiation therapy together with combination chemotherapy before surgery may make the tumor smaller and reduce the amount of normal tissue that needs to be removed. Giving combination chemotherapy after surgery may kill any tumor cells that remain after surgery. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving stereotactic radiation therapy together with combination chemotherapy works in treating patients undergoing surgery for locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

This study with pemetrexed is for patients with metastatic or unresectable pancreatic cancer who progressed after first line chemotherapy with gemcitabine.

Dasatinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. This phase II trial is studying how well dasatinib works in treating patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

This phase I/II trial is studying the side effects and best dose of everolimus when given together with sorafenib tosylate and to see how well they work in treating patients with advanced solid tumors and metastatic pancreatic cancer that does not respond to gemcitabine hydrochloride. Sorafenib tosylate and everolimus may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Sorafenib tosylate may also stop the growth of pancreatic cancer by blocking blood flow to the tumor. Giving sorafenib tosylate together with everolimus may kill more tumor cells.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of selected dose 1.2mg/kg BID dosage administered subcutaneously (SC) administered PCI-27483 to metastatic or locally advanced pancreatic cancer patients receiving concurrent therapy with intravenously administered gemcitabine for 12 weeks.

The purpose of this study is to assess overall survival after treatment with a regimen of adjuvant therapy (Gemcitabine alone or with 5-FU chemoradiation) with or without HyperAcute®-Pancreas (algenpantucel-L) immunotherapy in subjects who have undergone surgical resection.

People with pancreatic cancer that cannot be cured by surgery are being asked to participate in this study. The purpose of this study is to test the ability of the radiation oncologists to administer Cyberknife therapy along with Gemcitabine chemotherapy for patients with pancreatic cancer. Radiation and Gemcitabine are both effective at killing cancer cells but they generally cannot be given at the same time. Cyberknife therapy is highly focused radiation that is being used extensively at Georgetown University and around the United States to treat a number of cancers. It is believed that because Cyberknife is so highly focused it can be given safely with regular doses of chemotherapy to attack cancer cells in two ways at the same time. This research is being done because it is not known if using Cyberknife with chemotherapy will be a safe way to treat pancreatic cancer.

Octreotide (OCT) is a somatostatin analogue (SSA) available in a long-acting formulation, conventionally administered every 28 days at the maximum dose of 30 mg. Together with lanreotide, it is considered the therapy of choice in the control of endocrine syndromes associated with neuroendocrine tumors (NET)s. A complete or partial clinical response to SSA therapy is generally achieved in at least 50% of the patients with neuroendocrine syndrome. Many studies reported a clinical response in 70-90% of functioning NETs. In about 36-50% of the patients with progressive advanced well differentiated NET (WDNET), a stabilization of disease occurs after treatment with subcutaneous OCT. By developing long-acting slow-release SSA formulation, long-acting OCT (LAR), lanreotide-SR, lanreotide-Autogel, the patient's compliance to SSA therapy was improved and escape from treatment, which was common with the subcutaneous formulation, was avoided. However, rate of objective response was not significantly improved as compared to short-acting SSA. On the other hand, it has to be remarked that long-acting SSA are being used in NET patients at doses correspondent to the low doses of short-acting formulation. The higher commercially available doses of LAR is 30 mg, which is assumed to be comparable to 300 µg of short-acting OCT in the therapy of acromegaly. Only one study was designed to investigate the use of high-dose LAR (160 mg every 28 days). In this study, objective and hormonal responses in patients with progressive metastatic ileal NET non-responder to standard doses, was significantly elevated. However, this compound has never been commercialized and, of consequence, this first preliminary observation has not been confirmed by further studies. No systematic studies were performed with the commercially available long-acting SSA used in high-dose treatments. In patients with progressive locally advanced or metastatic NET, increase of the dose or reduction of the interval between injections is a relatively common "empirical" clinical practice, but no studies have been performed to evaluate safety and efficacy of this treatment schedule.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine hydrochloride and oxaliplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Erlotinib hydrochloride may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving gemcitabine hydrochloride and oxaliplatin together with erlotinib hydrochloride may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of erlotinib hydrochloride when given together with gemcitabine hydrochloride and oxaliplatin in treating patients with advanced biliary tract cancer, pancreatic cancer, duodenal cancer, or ampullary cancer.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Erlotinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving gemcitabine together with erlotinib may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving gemcitabine together with erlotinib works in treating patients with metastatic or recurrent pancreatic cancer.