Archives: Clinical Trials

This single arm study will assess the efficacy and safety of Tarceva + gemcitabine in patients with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic pancreatic cancer. Patients will receive Tarceva 100mg po daily, in combination with gemcitabine 1000mg/m2 iv weekly for 8 weeks, followed by weekly for 3 weeks of each 4 week cycle. The anticipated time on study treatment is until disease progression, and the target sample size is <100 individuals.

The aim of this clinical trial is to evaluate temporal delay (days) between biliary drainage (EUS-CDS vs ERCP as first line therapy) and chemotherapy start in patients with borderline distal malignant biliary obstruction.

Prognostic and predictive value of assessing the patients micrometastasis status in blood and bone marrow when diagnosed GI cancer. 2 different patient subgroups are currently studied, patients with cancer of the pancreas and patients with liver metastasis secondary to colorectal cancer.

Our hypothesis is that patients with detective circulating tumor cells in the blood or disseminated tumour cells in their bone marrow at diagnosis have a more advanced disease than negative patients. This information may be of therapeutic interest.

This is a Phase 1/1b open-label, dose escalation and dose expansion study of CPI-006, a humanized monoclonal antibody (mAb) targeting the CD73 cell-surface ectonucleotidase in adult subjects with select advanced cancers. CPI-006 will be evaluated as a single agent, in combination with ciforadenant (an oral adenosine 2A receptor antagonist), in combination with pembrolizumab (an anti-PD1 antibody), and in combination with ciforadenant and pembrolizumab.

RATIONALE: Immunotoxins can locate tumor cells and kill them without harming normal cells. Immunotoxin therapy may be effective in treating advanced solid tumors.

PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of immunotoxin therapy in treating patients with recurrent unresectable advanced solid tumors.

The goal of this study is to establish maximum tolerated doses/recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) of temozolomide (TMZ) and TAS-102 when these agents are used in combination and to evaluate the safety profile of this drug combination.

Since patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer have a limited life expectancy, it is important to determine the timing of when to start chemotherapy in order to optimize the benefits of chemotherapy relative to the side effects. Therefore, two treatment strategies can be considered: chemotherapy started immediately at diagnosis, or delayed until disease-related symptoms occur.

Research Hypothesis: icotinib administered in combination with gemcitabine has an acceptable safety profile in subjects with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.The primary objective is to determine the safety profile of icotinib in combination with gemcitabine in subjects with locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

RATIONALE: Meeting with a nurse to assess symptoms and quality of life may be more effective than standard care in treating patients with pancreatic cancer.

PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying nurse-provided care to see how well it works compared with standard care in treating patients with pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) can be divided into pancreatic head cancer (PHC) and pancreatic body/tail cancer (PBTC) according to the anatomical position of tumors. There is increasing evidence that tumors at different sites exhibit different genetic or molecular features and clinical manifestations, and can affect the survival and outcomes of PDAC patients. Studies have shown that the prognosis of PBTC is worse than that of PHC, which is partly attributed to the relatively late clinical presentation of PBTC patients and the lack of overt symptoms such as obstructive jaundice, which is common in PHC. However, it has also been shown that the worse survival of PBTC compared to PHC is not related to the disease stage. Previous studies have investigated the molecular differences between PHC and PBTC and found that the frequency of SMAD4 mutation in PBTC was significantly higher than that in PHC at early stages (I-II). In the late stage (III-IV), PBTC had higher mutation frequency of Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, but lower frequency of genomic alterations which can be targeted by drugs. The above genetic and molecular differences may be related to the clinical differences between PHC and PBTC.

However, the differences in microbial composition and metabolism between PHC and PBTC have not been fully studied and discussed, and their relationship with clinical manifestations and prognosis is also unclear. In this study, the investigators aimed to analyze the microbial and metabolic differences between PHC and PBTC through 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) sequencing and untargeted metabolome analysis to further explore the etiology and pathogenesis of PDAC at different anatomical positions.