Archives: Clinical Trials

This is a case-control study to clinically validate the performance of a protein biomarker test to differentiate Stage I and Stage II pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patient samples from samples acquired from control patients not diagnosed with PDAC but at increased risk of disease due to familial/genetic history or clinical symptoms.

The endogenous digitalis-like compounds (DLC)are steroid hormones synthesized and released from the adrenal gland.They are integrated in the feed-back system of the Hypothalami-Pituitary-Adrenal gland axis.One of their remarkable function is to induce apoptosis in malignant cells. Recently, accumulating data point to the possibility of using synthetic DLC as new anti-cancer drugs. Less is known about the endogenous metabolism of these compounds in cancer patients.

Proceeding from preliminary clinical data which demonstrated significantly reduced DLC plasma levels in breast cancer patients and from in vitro data which showed an impaired release of DLC towards stress stimuli in athymic nude mice,we put up the hypothesis that a latent adrenal insufficiency with low DLC levels facilitates the induction and progression of tumor diseases.

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy and safety of the drug combination GFF in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer (APC).

The primary objective of this proposed prospective randomized, multi-center study is to evaluate the capability of the new 22G SharkCore™ needle to obtain tissue specimens and to compare its performance against the standard 22G BNX Endoscopic Ultrasound Fine needle aspiration (Beacon Endoscopic, Newton, MA) needle in the evaluation of solid mass lesions in the pancreas and gastrointestinal tract. The secondary objective is to determine the ability of the 22G SharkCore™ needle system to yield histologic tissue.

This study aims to pool the clinical experience of Spanish centers treating patients with 177Lu-DOTATATE to evaluate the efficacy, tolerance, and safety of the drug in routine clinical practice and to learn about the profiles of patients and tumors treated and the results in each type of patient and tumor.

RATIONALE: Perifosine may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking the enzymes necessary for tumor cell growth.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of perifosine in treating patients who have locally advanced, unresectable, or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

This pilot clinical trial studies how well computed tomography (CT) perfusion images work in assessing treatment response in patients with pancreatic cancer. Analyzing specific measurements on the CT perfusion images may help doctors better determine how a tumor responds to chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and may help guide treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer.

RATIONALE: Stereotactic body radiation therapy may be able to send x-rays directly to the tumor and cause less damage to normal tissue. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine hydrochloride, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving stereotactic body radiation therapy together with gemcitabine hydrochloride may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This phase I trial is studying the side effects of stereotactic body radiation therapy when given with or without gemcitabine hydrochloride in treating patients with pancreatic cancer that can be removed by surgery.

Explore new markers based on portal venous blood sampling to establish novel diagnostic models for identification of malignant pancreatic mass.

The main research objective is to work out the optimal doses of the novel combination of gemcitabine, oxaliplatin and imatinib mesylate (glivec) in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer that has progressed during or after treatment with first-line gemcitabine.