Cisplatin Treatment Options in New York

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim may increase the number of immune cells found in bone marrow or peripheral blood and may help a person's immune system recover from the side effects of chemotherapy. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of paclitaxel, cisplatin, and filgrastim combined with radiation therapy in treating patients who have locally recurrent head and neck cancer and have received previous treatment with radiation therapy. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy such as cisplatin and paclitaxel use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Cisplatin and paclitaxel may make the tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy and may kill any tumor cells remaining after surgery. PURPOSE: Randomized phase II trial to study the effectiveness of cisplatin, paclitaxel, and radiation therapy with or without fluorouracil in treating patients who have stage IB, stage IIB, or stage IIIB stomach cancer that has been removed during surgery. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy following surgery may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of chemotherapy plus radiation therapy in treating patients who have undergone surgery for stage III or stage IV head and neck cancer. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase I trial to study the effect on the body when combining irinotecan and cisplatin with radiation therapy in treating patients who have limited-stage small cell lung cancer that could not be completely removed during surgery. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Vandetanib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. It is not yet known whether giving chemotherapy together with radiation therapy is more effective with or without vandetanib in treating patients with head and neck cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying giving chemotherapy together with radiation therapy to see how well it works compared with giving chemotherapy and radiation therapy together with vandetanib in treating patients with high-risk stage III or stage IV head and neck cancer. Read Less

This study intends to evaluate the feasibility and treatment efficacy of adding an antibody blocking the epidermal growth factor (EGF) pathway to a neoadjuvant approach with proven efficacy developed at New York University. Read Less

The main purpose of this study is to look at the cancer-free survival at two years of subjects with high risk upper tract urothelial cancer when treated with the combination of two chemotherapy drugs called Gemcitabine and Cisplatin followed by surgery to remove the kidney, all or part of the ureter (ureters are tubes made of smooth muscle fibers that propel urine from the kidneys to the urinary bladder), and a cuff of bladder where the ureter drains into the bladder. Other purposes of the study include looking at the safety of Gemcitabine and Cisplatin before surgery for this type of cancer, time to recurrence of cancer, and overall survival. Exploratory integrative tumor sequencing: The purpose of this part of the study is to test deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) in various types of samples (tissue and blood) to detect different types of cancer genetic changes in upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC) to help develop future studies in UTUC. DNA and RNA contain key instructions for cell function and help determine the characteristics of each individual such as hair, eye, and skin color, height, susceptibility to diseases, and other characteristics. Read Less

RATIONALE: Monoclonal antibodies, such as cetuximab, can block tumor growth in different ways. Some block the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. Others find tumor cells and help kill them or carry tumor-killing substances to them. Cetuximab may also stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for their growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin and irinotecan, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving cetuximab together with cisplatin and irinotecan may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving cetuximab together with cisplatin and irinotecan works in treating patients with metastatic esophageal cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, or gastric cancer that did not respond to previous irinotecan and cisplatin. Read Less

Standard chemotherapy drugs generally work by killing rapidly dividing cells in your body. Cancers cells are some of the most rapidly dividing cells and that is why chemotherapy can be effective in some patients. Gemcitabine and Cisplatin are an effective and standard drug combination used to treat locally advanced and metastatic urothelial cancer. However, these drugs do not shrink tumors in all patients and when they do, it is generally for a limited amount of time. This has led scientists to look for different ways to treat cancer. New drugs have been developed to treat cancer that work differently than standard chemotherapy drugs. These drugs attempt to decrease the blood supply to tumors. By doing so, this may limit the tumor's source of oxygen and nutrients and prevent the tumor from growing. Sorafenib is an example of a drug that works in this way. In some patients with advanced kidney cancer, sorafenib alone has been shown to slow the progression of their disease. The purpose of this study is to find out what effects, good and/or bad, the combination of gemcitabine, cisplatin, and sorafenib has on you and your cancer. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Combining more than one chemotherapy drug with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy and radiation therapy in treating patients with stage III or stage IV cancer of the hypopharynx or tongue. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Everolimus may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Everolimus may also help cisplatin work better by making tumor cells more sensitive to the drug. Giving cisplatin together with everolimus may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of everolimus when given together with cisplatin in treating patients with advanced solid tumors or recurrent or metastatic solid tumors. Read Less

The investigators want to learn to predict which tumors will respond to CVT chemotherapy. CVT is a combination of three drugs - cisplatin, vinblastine, and temozolomide. We and other investigators have used CVT in melanoma patients and found that tumors got significantly smaller in 30-40% of cases. In this study, the investigators want to get a precise idea of how many patients will respond to CVT. Also they want to test which genes in the tumor are turned on and which are turned off. We hope this will teach us to know in the future which tumors will respond to CVT. Read Less