Cyclophosphamide Plus Vaccine Therapy in Treating Patients With Advanced Cancer

Overview

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: * Determine the safety and clinical effects of autologous or allogeneic active-specific intralymphatic immunotherapy with a vaccine containing interferon alfa or interferon gamma-treated tumor cells followed by sargramostim (GM-CSF) in patients with advanced cancer. 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.

Conditions