A Trial of Active Intralymphatic Immunotherapy With Interferon-Treated Cells and Cyclophosphamide
A Trial of Active Intralymphatic Immunotherapy With Interferon-Treated Cells and Cyclophosphamide
RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Vaccines made from a patient's tumor tissue may make the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells. Chemotherapy combined with vaccine therapy may kill more tumor cells.
PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining cyclophosphamide with tumor cell vaccine in treating patients who have metastatic cancer or cancer at high risk of recurrence.
OBJECTIVES:
OUTLINE: This is a pilot study. Patients are stratified by tumor type.
Tumor tissue is removed from the patient and incubated with interferon alfa or interferon gamma for 72-96 hours. (If autologous tumor cells are not available, an allogeneic vaccine is prepared.) Harvested activated cells are irradiated immediately prior to use.
Patients receive cyclophosphamide IV. 48-72 hours after cyclophosphamide administration, patients receive tumor cell vaccine intradermally. Patients also receive sargramostim (GM-CSF) subcutaneously prior to vaccine administration and once daily for the next 8 days. Treatment repeats every 2 weeks for 3 courses in the absence of unacceptable toxicity. Patients with responding or stable disease after completion of course 3 may receive additional courses.
Patients are followed for survival.
PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 20-40 patients will be accrued for this study within 18-24 months.
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:
Histologically confirmed cancer not amenable to cure or long-term control by surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or hormonal manipulations, including the following tumor types:
Metastatic disease or subclinical disease at high risk of recurrence
No brain metastases unresponsive to irradiation or surgery
Hormone receptor status:
PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:
Age:
Sex:
Menopausal status:
Performance status:
Life expectancy:
Hematopoietic:
Hepatic:
Renal:
Cardiovascular:
Pulmonary:
Other:
PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:
Biologic therapy:
Chemotherapy:
Endocrine therapy:
Radiotherapy:
Surgery: