Paclitaxel Treatment Options in Minneapolis, MN

Unfortunately, despite the best clinical efforts and breakthroughs in biotechnology, most patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer continue to die from the rapid progression of their disease. One primary reason for this is that the disease is typically without symptoms until significant local and/or distant spread has occurred and is often beyond the chance for cure at the time of the diagnosis. The lack of any treatment to substantially increase long term survival rates is reflected by the poor outcomes associated with this disease, specifically time to disease progression and overall survival. However, another important part of the body is now being looked at as a target for therapy against this disease - the immune system. Scientists have clearly shown that pancreatic tumor cells produce a number of defective proteins, or express normal proteins in highly uncharacteristic ways, as part of this cancer. In some cancers, these abnormalities can cause an immune response to the cancer cells much in the way one responds to infected tissue. In progressive cancers however, the immune system fails to effectively identify or respond to these abnormalities and the cancer cells are not attacked or destroyed for reasons not yet fully understood. This clinical trial proposes a new way to stimulate the immune system to recognize pancreatic cancer cells and to stimulate an immune response that destroys or blocks the growth of the cancer. This new method of treatment helps the immune system of pancreatic cancer patients to "identify" the cancerous tissue so that it can be eliminated from the body. As an example, most people are aware that patients with certain diseases may require an organ transplant to replace a damaged kidney or heart. After receiving their transplant, these patients receive special drugs because they are at great danger of having an immune response that destroys or "rejects" the transplanted organ. This "rejection" occurs when their immune system responds to differences between the cells of the transplanted organ and their own immune system by attacking the foreign tissue in the same way as it would attack infected tissue. When the differences between foreign tissues and the patient's body are even larger, as with the differences between organs from different species, the rejection is very rapid, highly destructive, and the immunity it generates is longlasting. This is called hyperacute rejection and the medicine used to immunize patients in this protocol tries to harness this response to teach a patient's immune system to fight their pancreatic cancer just as the body would learn to reject a transplanted organ from an animal. To do this, Algenpantucel-L immunotherapy contains human pancreatic cancer cells that contain a mouse gene that marks the cancer cells as foreign to patient's immune systems. The immune system therefore attacks these cancer cells just as they would attack any truly foreign tissue, destroying as much as it can. Additionally, the immune system is stimulated to identify differences (aside from the mouse gene) between these cancer cells and normal human tissue as foreign. This "education" of the immune system helps treat the patient because pancreatic cancer cells already present in a treated patient are believed to show some of the same differences from normal tissue as the modified pancreatic cancer cells in the product. Due to these similarities, the immune system, once "educated" by the Algenpantucel-L immunotherapy, identifies the patient's cancer as foreign and attacks. The chemotherapy combination to be used in this study has been shown to improve survival in advanced pancreatic cancer and is being combined with an experimental pancreatic cancer immunotherapy that stimulates the immune system to recognize and attack the cancer. One goal of this study is to determine whether chemotherapy and immunotherapies can work cooperatively to increase anti-tumor effects to levels beyond what would be seen with either treatment alone. In this experimental study, all patients are given a strong combination of anti-tumor chemotherapies while some patients are also given injections of an immunotherapy drug consisting of two types of pancreatic cancer cells that we have modified to make them more easily recognized and attacked by the immune system. We propose to test this new treatment protocol in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer to demonstrate that treatment with the immunotherapy increases the time until the tumor progresses or increases overall survival when given in combination with the current standard of care therapy for this disease. Read Less

The primary objective of this study was to compare the safety of dose-dense ABI-007 (Abraxane) 260 mg/m\^2 or Taxol 175 mg/m\^2 given every 2 weeks following dose-dense Adriamycin plus Cytoxan (AC) chemotherapy. Bevacizumab was administered at 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks throughout chemotherapy, and then at 15 mg/kg every 3 weeks following chemotherapy. Read Less

To determine the maximum tolerated dose and dose-limiting toxicity of Gemcitabine plus Albumin-bound paclitaxel (ABI-007) in patients with advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer. Read Less

Phase III Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Read Less

The main purpose of this research study is to compare the safety, tolerability, and anti tumor activity of an investigational drug, ABI-007 versus Dacarbazine in patients with metastatic melanoma who have not previously received chemotherapy. ABI-007 is a new preparation of the active drug paclitaxel. It contains the same medication as the prescription chemotherapy drug Abraxane®. Abraxane® is approved by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer after failure of combination chemotherapy for metastatic disease or relapse within 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy. Dacarbazine is approved by the FDA for the treatment of melanoma. In this study, ABI-007 and Dacarbazine will be tested as therapy for people who have not yet had any cancer treatment for the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma. Read Less

This randomized phase II trial studies how well erlotinib hydrochloride or crizotinib with chemoradiation therapy works in treating patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer. Radiation therapy uses high energy x rays to kill tumor cells. Specialized radiation therapy that delivers a high dose of radiation directly to the tumor may kill more tumor cells and cause less damage to normal tissue. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cisplatin, etoposide, paclitaxel, and carboplatin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. It is not yet known whether giving erlotinib hydrochloride is more effective than crizotinib with chemoradiation therapy in treating patients with non-small cell lung cancer. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to compare the anti-tumor efficacy of oral single-agent rociletinib, as measured by investigator assessment of the PFS, with that of single-agent cytotoxic chemotherapy in patients with EGFR-mutated, advanced/metastatic NSCLC after failure of at least 1 previous EGFR-directed TKI and at least 1 line of platinum-containing doublet chemotherapy. Read Less

This randomized phase II trial studies how well erlotinib hydrochloride with or without carboplatin and paclitaxel works in treating patients with stage III-IV non-small cell lung cancer. Erlotinib hydrochloride may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as carboplatin and paclitaxel, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Giving erlotinib hydrochloride together with carboplatin and paclitaxel may kill more tumor cells than giving either drug alone. Read Less

This randomized phase III trial studies the side effects of paclitaxel when given together with cisplatin or topotecan with or without bevacizumab and to compare how well they work in treating patients with stage IVB, cervical cancer that has come back or is persistent. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as paclitaxel, cisplatin, and topotecan, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Monoclonal antibodies, such as bevacizumab, may interfere with the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. It is not yet known whether paclitaxel is more effective when given together with cisplatin or topotecan with or without bevacizumab in treating patients with cervical cancer. Read Less

This randomized phase III trial studies carboplatin, paclitaxel, and bevacizumab to see how well they work compared to carboplatin, paclitaxel, and placebo in treating patients with stage III or stage IV ovarian epithelial, primary peritoneal, or fallopian tube cancer. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as carboplatin and paclitaxel, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Monoclonal antibodies, such as bevacizumab, may interfere with the ability of tumor cells to grow and spread. It is not yet known whether carboplatin, paclitaxel, and bevacizumab are more effective than carboplatin, paclitaxel, and placebo in treating ovarian epithelial, primary peritoneal, or fallopian tube cancer. Read Less

This is an open-label, pilot study in patients with a diagnosis of recurrent ovarian, fallopian tube or primary peritoneal carcinoma who have undergone standard cytoreductive surgery following by adjuvant chemotherapy. It is expected that this first surgery was optimal - as defined as no residual tumor \> or = 1 centimeter. Patient has clinical evidence of a first recurrence. The patient undergoes surgery and isotonic normal saline (perfusate) heated and administered into the abdomen, followed by hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy infusion (HIPC) administering carboplatin (chemotherapy). Six weeks after surgery patients will receive adjuvant chemotherapy with Paclitaxel and Carboplatin for 6 cycles. 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 whether receiving combined carboplatin and paclitaxel plus continued low-dose paclitaxel is more effective than carboplatin and paclitaxel alone for early-stage ovarian cancer. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying carboplatin and paclitaxel alone too see how well they work compared to carboplatin and paclitaxel together with continued low-dose paclitaxel in treating patients with early-stage ovarian cancer. Read Less