Carboplatin Treatment Options in Michigan

The purpose of this study is to test SU011248 (sunitinib) in combination with paclitaxel/carboplatin. This combination regimen will be tested for safety and antitumor activity. Read Less

This study is a Phase 3, global, multi-center, open-label study of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. Eligible patients will be randomly assigned to receive either pemetrexed plus carboplatin or etoposide plus carboplatin. It is anticipated that pemetrexed plus carboplatin will offer similar survival benefits as compared to etoposide plus carboplatin. Read Less

Patients who are at least 18 years of age and have a type of cancer known as advanced non-small cell lung cancer may be eligible for this study if they meet all of the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Background: The standard treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell cancer is chemotherapy. The two drug combination, carboplatin (Paraplatin) and paclitaxel (Taxol), is commonly used as the first treatment. Unfortunately, standard treatment with chemotherapy only shrinks the cancer in about 30% of patients that receive it. There is no way to predict who will or won't benefit from this treatment. The researchers at the University of Michigan would like to determine if the genes of the lung cancers in patients enrolled in this study will help predict whether or not the tumors shrink when exposed to standard chemotherapy. The goal is to find a set of lung cancer genes that will predict successful treatment with carboplatin and paclitaxel in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The actual treatment, carboplatin and paclitaxel, involved in this study is not experimental. The experimental aspect of this study is the identification of predictors of response to treatment. To do this, it would require a sample of your cancer. If your initial surgery or biopsy was done at the University of Michigan, we may already have an adequate sample of your cancer that could be used for this research. In that case, we are asking for your permission to use this sample for this study. However, if you meet all eligibility criteria and agree to participate in this research study and an adequate sample is not available, you will need to undergo another biopsy procedure for us to obtain a sample of your cancer. Obtaining a tumor sample is the most crucial part of this research study. Read Less

This study is for patients with a type of cancer called carcinoma of unknown primary site (CUP), meaning that the site of the body where the tumor has originated is not clear. Currently, carcinoma of unknown primary site (CUP) accounts for about 5% of all newly diagnosed malignancies. The stage of the tumor is such that it is not treatable by surgery. Currently, the standard treatment for such a type of cancer at that stage is chemotherapy. However, the overall prognosis for patients with metastatic CUP remains poor, even if treated with conventional chemotherapy. Through ongoing research at medical centers around the world, doctors are trying to improve on the presently available chemotherapy regimens. The purpose of the investigators' study is similar: it is trying to determine whether a combination of three chemotherapy drugs - carboplatin, gemcitabine, and capecitabine - will improve the treatment of patients with metastatic CUP. The reason the investigators are interested in the above combination of chemotherapy agents is that each one of them is already used in patients with a variety of specific tumors, such as lung cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, etc. This research study will help determine whether the combination of carboplatin, gemcitabine and capecitabine can be used and is effective in patients with carcinoma of unknown primary site. Read Less

* this study is being done to find out if the combination of carboplatin and gemcitabine will be more effective in the the treatment of advanced lung cancer if bevacizumab, an agent that blocks tumor blood vessel formation, is added * the study will measure the time to progression of patients treated with the combination; we hope to show that the addition of bevacizumab improves the time to progression (increases the amount of time before the disease begins to worsen) * all patients receive all three drugs; there is no placebo Read Less