Multivirus-specific T Cells for the Treatment of Virus Infections After Stem Cell Transplant — CHARMS  

Infection Clinical Trial

Official title: Administration of Most Closely HLA-matched Multivirus-specific Cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes for the Treatment of EBV, CMV, Adenovirus, HHV6, and BK Virus Infections Post Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

Patients enrolled on this study will have received a stem cell transplant. After a transplant, while the immune system grows back the patient is at risk for infection. Some viruses can stay in the body for life and if the immune system is weakened, like after a transplant, they can cause life threatening infections.

Patients enrolled on this study will have had an infection with one or more of the following viruses - Epstein Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), BK virus, JC virus, adenovirus or HHV6 (Human Herpes Virus 6).

Investigators want to see if they can use a kind of white blood cell called T cells to treat infections of these viruses after a transplant. Investigators have observed in other studies that treatment with specially trained T cells has been successful when the cells are made from the transplant donor. However as it takes 1-2 months to make the cells, that approach is not practical when a patient already has an infection.

Investigators have now generated multivirus-specific T cells (VSTs) from the blood of healthy donors and created a bank of these cells. Investigators have previously successfully used frozen multivirus-specific T cells from healthy donors to treat virus infections after bone marrow transplant and now have improved the production method to make it safer and target more viruses.

In this study, investigators want to find out if they can use these banked VSTs to fight infections caused by the viruses mentioned above.

Clinical Trial Description

These VST lines have been made at Baylor College of Medicine from donors for other transplant patients or other normal donors some of whom were from the National Marrow Donor Program. All donors have been screened with the standard blood bank donor questionnaire, medical history and testing for infectious disease by a doctor who is experienced in screening transplant donors. Only donors who have cleared this process and were deemed to be eligible provided blood for VST generation.

The lines were made using a special process. To make the VSTs investigators mixed donor cells with small pieces of proteins, called peptides that come from adenovirus, CMV, EBV, BKV and HHV6. These peptides stimulate donor T cells that react against the viruses to grow and train the donor T cells to kill cells that are infected with CMV, EBV, adenovirus, BKV and HHV6.

Once the investigators made sufficient numbers of VSTs, they tested them to make sure they would target cells infected with these viruses but not normal cells. Then the cells were frozen.

For patients treated on this study, the VSTs will be thawed and injected into their intravenous line. The patient will remain in the clinic for at least one hour after the infusion. After the patient receives the cells, their transplant doctor will monitor the levels of the virus the patient is infected with in their blood. The investigators will also take blood to see how long the VSTs given to the patient last in their body.

The patient will continue to be followed by their doctors after the injection. The patient will either be seen in the clinic or will be contacted by a research nurse to follow up for this study every week for 6 weeks then at 3, 6 and 12 months. The patient may have other visits for their standard care.

The patient will also have regular blood tests done to follow their counts and the viral infection, but most of these will be done as part of their standard medical care. To learn more about the way the VSTs are working in the patient's body, up to an extra 30-40 ml (6-8 teaspoons) of blood will be taken before the infusion and then at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 weeks and 3 months. Blood should come from the central intravenous line, and should not require extra needle sticks.

All participants on this study will be infused with the same number (dose) of cells. If after the first treatment the patient has a persistent infection, we would discuss this with him/her and allow an option to receive more treatments. These additional treatments might be with cells from the same donor or if we feel that there is another donor's whose cells might be better for the patient, we would use cells from a different donor. This second product will be administered at the same dose level 28 days after the initial infusion, and subsequent infusions should be at least 14 days apart. After each VST infusion, the patient will be monitored as described above. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Communicable Diseases
• Infection
• Virus Diseases

• NCT number: NCT02108522
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: AlloVir
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 2014
• Completion date: December 2019