Study of Talazoparib, a PARP Inhibitor, in Patients With Advanced or Recurrent Solid Tumors

This is a single-arm, open-label study to assess the safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary efficacy of talazoparib in patients with advanced tumors with DNA-repair pathway deficiencies. There will be 2 parts to the study: a dose escalation phase in which the maximum tolerated dose will be defined, and a dose expansion phase.

Study to Assess the Safety and Tolerability of Repeated Doses of an Investigational New Drug in Patients With Cancer and Cachexia.

Study to assess the safety and tolerability of repeated doses of an investigational new drug in patients with cancer and cachexia.

A Data Collection Study for Patients With Adenocarcinoma Treated With the MyVaccx Immunotherapy Regimen.

A retrospective and prospective data collection study on 27 consecutive subjects with adenocarcinoma who were treated using the MyVaccx system by Dr. Gary Onik. Retrospective data were collected on the treatment with the immunotherapy system and prospective data will be collected as they are prospectively monitored through their normal standard of care for their original cancer.

Study of Induction Chemotherapy Followed by Radiochemotherapy in Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

There is no a clear consensus regarding the optimal treatment of locally advanced pancreatic disease. There is a potential role for neoadjuvant therapy to treat micrometastatic disease with chemotherapy, as well as for the treatment of local disease with radiotherapy. The investigators evaluated the safety and efficacy of induction chemotherapy with oxaliplatin and gemcitabine followed by a high weekly dose of gemcitabine concurrent to radiation therapy in patients with borderline resectable and unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer

A Study of Romidepsin (Depsipeptide) in Combination With Gemcitabine in Patients With Pancreatic and Other Advanced Solid Tumors

This was a phase I dose escalation trial designed to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) for the combination of romidepsin (depsipeptide) and gemcitabine. The study was originally planned as a Phase I/II; however only Phase I of the study was conducted.

Palliative Stereotactic Radiation for Pancreatic or Periampullary Adenocarcinoma

The investigators are looking to see if a certain dose of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) may be a viable treatment option for recurrent or residual pancreatic or periampullary adenocarcinoma.

Stereotactic MRI-guided On-table Adaptive Radiation Therapy (SMART) for Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

High-dose magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided hypofractionated radiation therapy delivered using daily adaptive dose planning has been shown in a retrospective study to result in improved overall survival, relative to patients receiving lower radiation doses, in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer, without increasing the rate of serious gastrointestinal toxicity.

The goal of the proposed trial is to investigative in a controlled, prospective manner the robustness of this outcome, and to track quality of life over a 5-year trial period.

Clinical Study Evaluating the Effect of Losartan

The pancreas is two organs packaged into one. The islets of Langerhans serve critical endocrine functions, and the exocrine portion is a major source of enzymes that are essential for digestion.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is more commonly referred to as pancreatic infiltrating ductal adenocarcinoma in addition to being the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States, after lung cancer in 2020.

Whereas pancreatic cancer is the seventh cause of death from cancer in Asia in 2020. Although it is substantially less common than the other malignancies, pancreatic carcinoma is near the top of the list of killers because it is a highly aggressive carry.

In Vivo Assessment of Hypoxia in Gastro-intestinal Cancer Using 18F-HX4-PET: an Optimization and Reproducibility Study

Several studies have shown that tumour hypoxia may have a negative impact on the outcome of anticancer treatment. Assessment of tumor hypoxia at baseline or shortly after start of treatment may serve as a predictive marker to determine treatment efficacy at an early stage. Preferably, such an assessment is performed in vivo and non-invasively.Non-invasive imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) using the 2-nitroimidazole nucleoside analogue, 3-18F-fluoro-2-(4-((2-nitro-1H-imidazol-1-yl)methyl)-1H-1,2,3-triazol-1- yl)propan-1-ol (18F-HX4), was tested as a new marker of tumor hypoxia. Before hypoxia-measurements can be clinically implemented for response prediction, the reproducibility of the technique should be assessed for each specific tumor type. Knowledge of reproducibility is needed to determine what change in parameters between two examinations can be considered relevant in an individual patient. Assessment of reproducibility becomes even more important in early response monitoring since the changes in the tumor induced by the treatment may be smaller during the treatment compared to response monitoring after completion of treatment. Also, as image quality of 18F-HX4-PET increases with increasing time intervals after injection, determination of the optimal time point for measurement of hypoxia is warranted.

Quality of Life After in Situ IRE in Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

A. Pancreatic cancer background In 2012, 1,172 new pancreatic cancer patients were diagnosed in Switzerland. Only 20% of the patients with newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer are candidates for surgical resection, the only potential treatment for cure. Over 30% of the patients initially present with locally advanced disease. Patients with locally advanced disease have no evidence of metastatic spread to the liver, lung, and peritoneum but present with local involvement of vital structures that prohibits reasonable tumor resection. Currently, those patients are evaluated for palliative chemotherapy +/- radiation therapy. However, even with best conventional medical therapy, median survival of patients with locally advanced disease is mostly below 1 year. Over the last years, loco-regional therapies gained increased attention including radiofrequency-, cryo-, and microwave ablation as well as electrochemotherapy. However, all those entities are criticized by their complication rates leading to morbidity and mortality, limited area of application given the complex anatomical structures around the pancreas, and ill-defined improvements in overall survival.

B. Irreversible electroporation (IRE):

Irreversible electroporation is an emerging ablative modality that gained enormous interest over the last five years. For locally advanced pancreatic cancer, it was introduced in 2009. IRE is mainly non-thermal and primarily works through apoptosis. Its well studied safety profile allows ablation also within the context of locally advanced pancreatic cancer given it mainly spares vessels from destruction.

Increasing evidence shows that IRE for locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer is effective compared to historic controls with a significant prolongation of local progression free survival, distant progression free survival and overall survival. The improvement in overall survival is about double the amount of what is seen with best new chemotherapy and chemoradiation regimens used at the present time. Those results are even more impressive given the discouraging improvements among palliative systemic options.

The NanoKnife IRE device (Angiodynamics, Queensbury, NY) is commonly used to perform IRE procedures in pancreatic cancer patients and is commercially available since 2009 and got Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510K clearance for soft tissue ablation in October 2011 in the United States.

C. Quality of life and nutritional status/long term outcomes Given the overall poor long-term outcomes of patients with pancreatic cancer, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures are of utmost importance when treatment recommendations are discussed with patients. This is especially true for patients with more advanced staged disease where definitive surgical resection with curative intent is not possible. However, HRQoL reports for patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer undergoing IRE are very limited. To the best of the investigators' knowledge, no other specific investigations exist that assessed HRQoL measures for patients undergoing IRE for locally advanced pancreatic cancer, no specific assessment exists that focuses on nutritional status for this patient group. In addition, impact on local and distant recurrence as well as cancer-specific and overall survival are still ill-defined and further information is needed.