Vaccine Therapy in Treating Patients With Stage III or Stage IV Melanoma

Melanoma (Skin) Clinical Trial

Official title: A Randomized Phase II Study of Immunization Against Melanoma Comparing Autologous Dendritic Cells Pulsed With gp100 Peptide to Autologous Dendritic Cells Fused With Autologous Tumor Cells

Status Recruiting

Clinical Trial Summary

RATIONALE: Vaccines made from a patient's dendritic cells may make the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells. It is not yet known whether combining vaccine therapy with either gp100 antigen or the patient's tumor cells will cause a stronger immune response and kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying vaccine therapy and gp100 antigen to see how well they work compared to vaccine therapy and patient's tumor cells in treating patients with stage III or stage IV melanoma.

Clinical Trial Description

OBJECTIVES:

Primary

• Compare the tumor-specific immune response, in terms of the number of gp100-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes, T-cell production of interferon gamma, or T-cell proliferation in response to in vitro exposure to gp100 and tumor lysate, in patients with stage III or IV melanoma treated with autologous dendritic cells (DC) pulsed with gp100 antigen vs autologous DC fused with autologous tumor cells.

Secondary

• Compare the safety and toxicity of these regimens in these patients.

• Compare the therapeutic effect of these regimens in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

All patients undergo leukapheresis. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells are cultured to generate dendritic cells (DC).

• Arm I: Patients undergo surgical harvesting of tumor cells for subsequent fusion. Patients receive vaccination comprising DC fused with autologous tumor cells subcutaneously on day 1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for 3 courses. Patients who achieve a partial (PR) or complete response (CR) may receive an additional 3 courses.

• Arm II: Patients receive vaccination comprising DC pulsed with gp100 antigen IV on day

1. Treatment repeats every 21 days for 6 courses. Patients who achieve a PR or CR may receive an additional 6 courses.

In both arms, patients are followed monthly for 6 months.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 40 patients (20 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study. ;

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Primary Purpose: Treatment

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Melanoma
• Melanoma (Skin)

• NCT number: NCT00085397
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 2
• Start date: March 2004