Active clinical trials for "Leukemia"

Relapsed disease is the most common cause of death in children with hematological malignancies. Patients who fail high-intensity conventional chemotherapeutic regimens or relapse after stem cell transplantation have a poor prognosis. Toxicity from multiple therapies and elevated leukemic/tumor burden usually make these patients ineligible for the aggressive chemotherapy regimens required for conventional stem cell transplantation. Alternative options are needed. One type of treatment being explored is called haploidentical transplant. Conventional blood or bone marrow stem cell transplant involves destroying the patient's diseased marrow with radiation or chemotherapy. Healthy marrow from a donor is then infused into the patient where it migrates to the bone marrow space to begin generating new blood cells. The best type of donor is a sibling or unrelated donor with an identical immune system (HLA "match"). However, most patients do not have a matched sibling available and/or are unable to identify an acceptable unrelated donor through the registries in a timely manner. In addition, the aggressive treatment required to prepare the body for these types of transplants can be too toxic for these highly pretreated patients. Therefore doctors are investigating haploidentical transplant using stem cells from HLA partially matched family member donors. Although haploidentical transplant has proven curative in many patients, this procedure has been hindered by significant complications, primarily regimen-related toxicity including graft versus host disease (GVHD), and infection due to delayed immune reconstitution. These can, in part, be due to certain white blood cells in the graft called T cells. GVHD happens when the donor T cells recognize the patient's (the host) body tissues are different and attack these cells. Although too many T cells increase the possibility of GVHD, too few may cause the recipient's immune system to reconstitute slowly or the graft to fail to grow, leaving the patient at high-risk for infection. However, the presence of T cells in the graft may offer a positive effect called graft versus malignancy or GVM. With GVM, the donor T cells recognize the patient's malignant cells as diseased and, in turn, attack these diseased cells. For these reasons, a primary focus for researchers is to engineer the graft to provide a T cell depleted product to reduce the risk of GVHD, yet provide a sufficient number of cells to facilitate immune reconstitution, graft integrity and GVM. In this study, patients were given a haploidentical graft engineered to with specific T cell parameter values using the CliniMACS system. A reduced intensity, preparative regimen was used to reduce regimen-related toxicity and mortality. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate overall survival in those who receive this study treatment.

The purpose of this study is to determine how effective, and to what extent, Iressa is in the treatment of acute myelogenous leukemia.

The primary objective is to estimate the overall event-free survival of children at least one year of age at diagnosis who are treated with risk-directed therapy and to monitor the molecular remission induction rate.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cytarabine and VNP40101M, work in different ways to stop the growth of cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving more than one drug (combination chemotherapy) may kill more cancer cells. PURPOSE: This randomized phase III trial is studying cytarabine and VNP40101M to see how well they work compared to cytarabine alone in treating patients with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia.

This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of tipifarnib and etoposide in treating older patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia. Tipifarnib may stop the growth of cancer cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as etoposide, work in different ways to stop the growth of cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Giving tipifarnib together with etoposide may kill more cancer cells

This Phase II trial is studying how well giving epratuzumab together with an established chemotherapy platform works in treating young patients with relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Monoclonal antibodies, such as epratuzumab, can block cancer growth in different ways. Some block the ability of cancer cells to grow and spread. Others find cancer cells and help kill them or carry cancer-killing substances to them. Chemotherapy drugs work in different ways to stop the growth of cancer cells, either by killing them or by stopping them from dividing. Giving monoclonal antibody therapy in combination chemotherapy may kill cancer cells more effectively.

The goal of this clinical research study is to learn if giving CAMPATH-1H first as an injection into a vein, then as an injection under the skin can shrink or slow the growth of the disease in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who have already received standard therapy. Another goal is to learn if the side effects related to CAMPATH-1H treatment are less severe by giving the drug first as an injection into a vein then as an injection under the skin.

RATIONALE: Biological therapies such as lenalidomide use different ways to stimulate the immune system and stop cancer cells from growing. Monoclonal antibodies such as rituximab can locate cancer cells and either kill them or deliver cancer-killing substances to them without harming normal cells. Combining lenalidomide with rituximab may kill more cancer cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying the how well giving lenalidomide with or without rituximab works in treating patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

This phase II trial studies pentostatin and donor lymphocyte infusion in preventing graft rejection in patients who have undergone donor stem cell transplant. Giving pentostatin and an infusion of the donor's T cells (donor lymphocyte infusion) after a donor stem cell transplant may stop the patient's immune system from rejecting the donor's stem cells. The donated stem cells may replace the patient's immune cells and help destroy any remaining cancer cells (graft-versus-tumor effect). Sometimes the transplanted cells from a donor can also make an immune response against the body's normal cells. Giving pentostatin before donor lymphocyte infusion may stop this from happening.

The purpose of this clinical research study is to learn if BMS-354825 will have activity as defined by hematologic responses in subjects with lymphoid blast phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and Philadelphia chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia with primary or acquired resistance to imatinib mesylate.