Paclitaxel Treatment Options in Michigan

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining chemotherapy with bone marrow or peripheral stem cell transplantation may allow the doctor to give higher doses of chemotherapy drugs and kill more tumor cells. Vaccines made from a person's white blood cells and tumor cells may make the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells. Interleukin-2 may stimulate a person's white blood cells to kill tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy and vaccine therapy followed by bone marrow or peripheral stem cell transplantation and interleukin-2 in treating patients who have recurrent or refractory brain cancer. Read Less

Sorafenib is being looked at in a number of solid tumor settings including breast cancer. This trial is designed as a pilot study to assess the safety and tolerability of a novel oral agent in combination with standard chemotherapy in the treatment of early stage node positive or otherwise high-risk breast cancer. If this should prove to be a tolerable regimen for patients, this would provide rationale for further studies in a larger randomized fashion. Read Less

In this randomized trial, we will investigate the activity and toxicity of two active regimens, gemcitabine/irinotecan and paclitaxel/carboplatin/Etoposide (both followed by ZD1839) in the first-line treatment of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary site. Read Less

Two new cancer treatment drugs called targeted therapies will be added to standard treatment for head and neck cancer to see if an improvement can be made in the effectiveness of treatment for this type of cancer. Treatment will include chemotherapy, radiation therapy and targeted therapy taken over a period of 4 months. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more tumor cells. 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. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combination chemotherapy plus filgrastim in treating patients who have previously untreated extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as carboplatin, paclitaxel, gemcitabine, and cisplatin, work in 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. Giving chemotherapy before radiation therapy, and combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy, may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of neoadjuvant gemcitabine, paclitaxel, and carboplatin followed by cisplatin and radiation therapy in treating patients who have locally advanced or recurrent carcinoma (cancer) of the urothelium. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known if surgery plus combination chemotherapy is more effective than surgery alone for non-small cell lung cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of surgery with or without combination chemotherapy in treating patients who have non-small cell lung cancer. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. It is not yet known whether combination chemotherapy is more effective with or without filgrastim in treating breast cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of combining doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel with or without filgrastim in treating women who have inflammatory or locally advanced breast cancer. Read Less

This study will involve subjects who have advanced urothelial cancer who are platinum refractory (platinum based chemotherapies that are not effective in treating the cancer), and who are over-expressing EGFR and/or HER2, or do not over-express EGFR and HER2. Genetic expression is a process that takes inherited information in genes (like DNA sequence), and from that information makes a specific functional product (sometimes called a gene product) such as RNA (ribonucleic acid) or protein. Normal tissue cells have a particular genetic expression, which changes when they turn into cancer. EGFR and HER2 are involved in the process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. The main purpose of the study is to look at the proportion of subjects, who over-express EGFR and/or HER2, who do not progress (cancer gets worse) after 16 weeks of study treatment with daily lapatinib and weekly paclitaxel. The study will also look at the safety and effectiveness of this therapy in all subjects. Another part of this study will look at blood and tissue samples. Blood samples will be collected to see how many cells express EGFR and HER2 before study treatment and at the time the cancer gets worse. Tumor tissue will be analyzed to look at the expression of certain genes in advanced urothelial cancer. Some gene expression tests can reveal how cancer cells are different from normal cells and the results might lead to more accurate diagnosis and treatment. Read Less

Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining trastuzumab with combination chemotherapy in treating patients who have locally recurrent or metastatic urinary tract cancer. Monoclonal antibodies such as trastuzumab can locate tumor cells and either kill them or deliver tumor-killing substances to them without harming normal cells. Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining monoclonal antibody therapy with combination chemotherapy may kill more tumor cells Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining paclitaxel, cisplatin, and liposomal doxorubicin in treating women who have undergone surgery for stage III ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, or primary peritoneal cancer. Read Less

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as paclitaxel and carboplatin, work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Monoclonal antibodies such as cetuximab can locate tumor cells and either kill them or deliver tumor-killing substances to them without harming normal cells. Combining more than one chemotherapy drug with a monoclonal antibody may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known whether cetuximab is more effective when given at the same time as chemotherapy or following chemotherapy. PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying how well giving cetuximab at the same time as combination chemotherapy works compared to giving cetuximab after combination chemotherapy in treating patients with stage IIIB or stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. Read Less