This phase I trial studies the side effects and best way to give personalized peptide vaccine in patients with pancreatic or colorectal cancer that has spread to other places in the body and usually cannot be cured or controlled with treatment (advanced). Personalized peptide vaccine is a vaccine developed from patient's own tumor cells and blood in order to use as a biological therapy. Biological therapies, such as personalized peptide vaccine may attack tumor cells and stop them from growing or kill them.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. Demonstrate that developing a custom vaccine for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) and colorectal cancer (CRC) patients is feasible. (cohorts A and B) II. Show that a custom peptide-based vaccine in combination with imiquiomod, pembrolizumab, and/or sotigalimab (APX005M) is safe. (cohorts A and B and C and D) SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Determine the clinical benefit of the peptide vaccine alone or combined with pembrolizumab or pembrolizumab and APX005M. (cohorts A and B and C and D) II. Demonstrate the antigenicity of each vaccine. (cohorts A and B and C and D) III. The change in neoantigen-specific T cell responses at 12 weeks after initiation of personalized peptide vaccination. (cohorts C and D) IV. Relapse-free survival and circulating tumor deoxyribonucleic acid (ctDNA) clearance rate. (cohorts C and D) OUTLINE: Patients are assigned to 1 of 3 cohorts. COHORT A: Patients receive personalized synthetic tumor-associated peptide vaccine therapy subcutaneously (SC) on day 1 of weeks 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 12, and 24. Beginning 15 minutes after each vaccine is administered, patients then receive imiquimod cream topically in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients also undergo computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at baseline and at weeks 0 and 6, then every 3 months, and at week 39. COHORT B: Patients receive personalized synthetic tumor-associated peptide vaccine therapy SC on day 1 of weeks 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 12, and 24. Beginning 15 minutes after each vaccine is administered, patients receive imiquimod cream topically. Patients also receive pembrolizumab intravenously (IV) over 30 minutes every 3 weeks until week 24 in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients also undergo CT or MRI scans at baseline and at weeks 0 and 6, then every 3 months, and at week 39. COHORTS C AND D: Patients receive personalized synthetic tumor-associated peptide vaccine therapy SC on day 1 of weeks 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24. Beginning 15 minutes after each vaccine is administered, patients receive imiquimod cream topically. Patients also receive pembrolizumab IV over 30 minutes every 3 weeks until week 24 in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Beginning about 1 hour after each vaccine, patients also receive sotigalimab IV over 60 minutes on day 1 of weeks 0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, and 24 in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients also undergo CT or MRI scans at baseline and weeks 6,12, and 24, then every 3 months, and at week 39. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed for 6 months.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
117
Applied topically
Given IV
Given IV
Given SC
Undergo CT
Undergo MRI
M D Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, Texas, United States
Proportion of enrolled patients for whom a personalized vaccine is developed and ready to administer (cohorts A and B)
Time frame: Up to 12 weeks post-enrollment
Proportion of enrolled patients who receive at least 1 dose of vaccine at any time post-enrollment (cohorts A and B)
Time frame: Up to 44 weeks
Incidence of adverse events (AEs)
Defined as the proportion of subjects who experience at least one toxicity event per National Cancer Institute Common Toxicity Criteria for Adverse Events version 4.0. A toxicity event is defined as at least one grade 3 or 4 non-hematologic or grade 4 hematologic toxicity. Proportion of patients with AEs will be estimated, along with the Bayesian 95% credible interval.
Time frame: Up to 24 weeks
Proportion of patients who have received at least one dose of vaccine that is alive and progression free defined based on response criteria according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) 1.1
Progression free includes complete response (CR), partial response (PR), and stable disease (SD). The target proportion is 45%, and a proportion of 20% or lower will be considered as not having the desired efficacy.
Time frame: At 12 weeks post-vaccination (second re-staging scan)
Progression-free survival (cohorts A and B and C)
Estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method, along with the 95% confidence intervals, and log-rank test will be used to assess the time to event variable differences under different patient subgroups.
Time frame: The time between the date of first vaccination and evidence of progression on computed tomography scan or the date of death due to any cause, assessed up to 6 months after the last dose of vaccine
Response rate (cohort A and B)
Response rate includes both CR and PR and will be evaluated using a Simon optimal two-stage design.
Time frame: Up to 12 weeks
Change in tumor biomarker (CA19-9, carcinoembryonic antigen [CEA] or circulating free deoxyribonucleic acid [cfDNA] mutation)
Time frame: Up to 6 months
Overall survival
Estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method, along with the 95% confidence intervals, and log-rank test will be used to assess the time to event variable differences under different patient subgroups.
Time frame: The time from first vaccination to death, assessed up to 6 months after the last dose of vaccine
Recurrence-free survival (cohort C and D)
Estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method.
Time frame: Up to 6 months
Rate of circulating deoxyribonucleic acid (ctDNA) clearance (cohort C and D)
A linear mixed model will also be fitted to correlate ctDNA clearance and neoantigen-specific CD8+ T cell over time.
Time frame: Up to 6 months
Change in neoantigen-specific T cell response (cohort C and D)
The difference in log2 transformed T cell response from baseline to 12 weeks will be calculated for each peptide and patient. This endpoint will focus upon the log2-fold change at 12 weeks for the max peptide (i.e., the peptide with the greatest change). Descriptive statistics, including mean, standard deviation, median and range, will be used to summarize the changes. A paired t-test will be used to evaluate the changes from baseline to 12 weeks post initiation of vaccination.
Time frame: Baseline to 12 weeks after initiation of personalized peptide vaccination
Correlation of T-cell activation against vaccinated peptides and ctDNA dynamics (cohort C and D)
Time frame: Up to 6 months
Tumor microenvironment immune infiltration and progression biopsies (cohort C and D)
Time frame: Baseline, up to 6 months
T cell IFN-gamma release in response to selected personalized peptide antigens
Time frame: Up to 6 months
Levels of intracellular cytokine staining of T cells
Assessed by flow cytometry in response to stimulation with personalized peptide antigens.
Time frame: Up to 6 months
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