Active clinical trials for "Pancreatic Neoplasms"

This study will analyze the effects, good and/or bad, of the drug Abraxane in combination with gemcitabine and gemcitabine with concurrent radiation therapy for patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer that cannot be removed by surgery. All of the medications used in this study are FDA-approved for use in patients with pancreatic cancer.

To assess the ability of a combination of updated and approved modalities in the treatment of first line pancreatic cancer patients to increase the time to Progression Free Survival

Pancreatic cysts are becoming diagnosed more frequently due to the increased use and sensitivity of imaging. A subset of these cysts are pre-cancerous, therefore suggested treatment is surgery for removal. However, surgery involves significant risks and emerging opinion suggests that not all cysts need to be surgically removed. An alternative therapy would be ideal, in particular for those where surgical risk outweighs the benefits of resection. Ethanol and paclitaxel ablation of pancreatic cysts may be a viable alternative to surgical resection. Our hypothesis is that ethanol with paclitaxel ablation is a safe and effective method for treatment in those with per-cancerous, mucinous pancreatic cysts.

This phase I trial is studying the side effects and the best dose of veliparib when given together with capecitabine and oxaliplatin in treating patients with advanced solid tumors. Veliparib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as capecitabine 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 veliparib together with capecitabine and oxaliplatin may kill more tumor cells.

The purpose of this study is to identify predictive molecular markers of response to continuous daily sunitinib at dose of 37.5 mg used in patients with poorly-differentiated Advanced/Inoperable NEURO-Endocrine Tumors. Hypothesis: To distinguish molecular markers based on their expression at the initial biopsy, their detection by proteomic analysis and demonstrating that tumor or vascular cells are straightaway sensitive to sunitinib (markers sensitivity). The presence of these markers at the initial biopsy predict the sensitivity to sunitinib(Positive predictive value of markers)

The primary purpose of this phase I study is to determine the safety of combining replication-competent adenovirus-mediated suicide gene therapy with chemoradiotherapy in patients with non-metastatic pancreatic cancer.

The intention of this trial is to determine the maximum tolerated of the treatment combination and to evaluate its safety and efficacy.

Erlotinib hydrochloride may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving erlotinib hydrochloride before surgery may make the tumor smaller and reduce the amount of normal tissue that needs to be removed. This phase II trial is studying how well erlotinib hydrochloride works in treating patients with pancreatic cancer that can be removed by surgery

This research study uses radiation or a gene therapy agent, TNFerade in addition to a dendritic cell vaccine in patients with locally advanced or low volume metastatic pancreatic cancer. The use of TNFerade or radiation serves to generate cell death stimulating the immune response. The dendritic cell vaccine may direct a distant and lasting effective anti-tumor immune response to achieve a local and systemic clinical benefit.

1.1 Primary Objective To evaluate the effects of short course preoperative erlotinib treatment in a panel of predictive biomarkers from a group of patients who undergo resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma with curative intent. 1.2 Secondary Objectives 1.2.1 To analyze the effects of short course preoperative erlotinib treatment followed by postoperative erlotinib-gemcitabine therapy in the disease-free survival of patients who undergo curative intent resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. 1.2.2 To evaluate secondary endpoints of disease response such as duration of overall survival and patterns of recurrence for patients with resectable pancreatic cancer who undergo this treatment regimen. 1.2.3 To evaluate the plasma pharmacokinetics of erlotinib in pancreatic cancer patients both in the preoperative and postoperative setting, and to explore correlations between plasma and tumor erlotinib concentrations. 1.2.4 To develop a clinically relevant predictive assay of response to erlotinib based on selected biomarkers in endoscopic ultrasound-fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) specimens when it can be obtained at the time of pancreatic cancer diagnosis in chemotherapy-naive patients.