Brain Stem Gliomas Treated With Adoptive Cellular Therapy During Focal Radiotherapy Recovery Alone or With Dose-intensified Temozolomide (Phase I)

Stopped early · Phase 1

Conditions studied: Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), Brain Stem Glioma

In brief

The standard of care for children with DIPG includes focal radiotherapy (RT) but outcomes have remained dismal despite this treatment. The addition of oral Temozolomide (TMZ) concurrently with RT followed by monthly TMZ was also found to be safe but ineffective. Recent studies in adults have shown that certain types of chemotherapy induce a profound but transient lymphopenia (low blood lymphocytes) and vaccinating and/or the adoptive transfer of tumor-specific lymphocytes into the cancer patient during this lymphopenic state leads to dramatic T cell expansion and potent immunologic and clinical responses. Therefore, patients in this study will either receive concurrent TMZ during RT and immunotherapy during and after maintenance cycles of dose-intensive TMZ (Group A) or focal radiotherapy alone and immunotherapy without maintenance DI TMZ (Group B). Immune responses during cycles of DC vaccination with or without DI TMZ will be evaluated in both treatment groups.

Key facts

Study ID: NCT03396575
Run by: University of Florida
People needed: 11
Starts: 2018-07-17
Expected to finish: 2025-03-20
Last updated by the study team: 2025-10-29

Who can join

Age: 3 and older, up to 30. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

Initial Screening
Radiologically confirmed DIPG or other diffuse intrinsic brain stem glioma (Grade III or IV).
Patient and/or parents/guardian willing to consent to biopsy for obtaining tumor material for confirmatory diagnosis and/or tumor RNA extraction and amplification.
Biopsy confirmation of any grade of glioma (for patients with classic DIPG on neuroimaging or at least grade III glioma in case of other diffuse intrinsic brain stem gliomas)
Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) of > 50% (KPS for > 16 years of age) or Lansky performance Score (LPS) of ≥ 50 (LPS for ≤ 16 years of age) assessed within 2 weeks prior to registration;
Bone Marrow;
ANC (absolute neutrophil count) ≥ 1000/µl (unsupported)
Platelets ≥ 100,000/µl (unsupported)
Hemoglobin > 8 g/dL (can be transfused)
Renal;
Serum creatinine ≤ upper limit of institutional normal
Hepatic;
Bilirubin ≤ 1.5 times upper limit of institutional normal for age
SGPT (ALT) ≤ 3 times upper limit of institutional normal for age
SGOT (AST) ≤ 3 times upper limit of institutional normal for age
Patients of childbearing or child-fathering potential must be willing to use medically acceptable forms of birth control while being treated on this study.
Signed informed consent according to institutional guidelines.
Post Biopsy
Patients with post-surgical neurological deficits should have deficits that are stable for a minimum of 1 week prior to registration;
Pathologic diagnosis of glioma on tumor biopsy.

You may not qualify if…

Patients with severe dysphagia, obtundation, or tetraplegia (poor risks for anesthesia and biopsy procedure);
Absence of tumor on biopsy specimen;
Pregnant or need to breast feed during the study period (Negative serum pregnancy test required)
Known autoimmune or immunosuppressive disease or human immunodeficiency virus infection;
Patients with significant renal, cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic or other organ dysfunction;
Severe or unstable concurrent medical conditions;
Patients who require corticosteroids above physiologic doses (>4 mg/day dexamethasone) after chemoradiotherapy;
Patients scheduled to receive any other concurrent anticancer or investigational drug therapy;
Prior allergic reaction to TMZ, GM-CSF, or Td;
Patients who are unwilling or unable to receive treatment and undergo follow-up evaluations at University of Florida;
Patient and/or parent/guardian demonstrating an inability to comply with the study and/or follow-up procedures.

Where it is running

UF Health Shands Children's Hospital — Gainesville, Florida, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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