In the last 10 years, the treatment of metastatic cutaneous melanoma has changed dramatically. The new systemic treatment with immunotherapy has led to a dramatic improvement in quality of life and overall survival. Systemic treatment means that the patient receives the drug as an infusion into a vein. Unfortunately, we know that immunotherapy is not equally successful in all patients. Recent studies have shown that the success of the treatment is not only influenced by the cellular composition of the metastasis, but also by its surroundings. This is called tumor microenvironment. Depending on the differences in the composition of...
The purpose of this protocol is to provide patients with adequate informed consent to understand that screening tests with minimal health risk will be performed to evaluate their eligibility for a research study. The protocol makes it clear that patients initial visit to the intramural clinical program may include screening studies that are not medically necessary for disease management, but are done purely for research purposes. Patients with a known or suspected diagnosis of cancer, HIV infection, skin disorder or immunodeficiency who are being considered for enrollment in a National Cancer Institute intramural clinical research...
Background: The NCI Surgery Branch has developed experimental therapies that involve taking white blood cells from participants' tumor or from their blood, growing them in the laboratory in large numbers, and then giving the cells back to the patient. Objective: This study will allow participants to be followed for up to 15 years following treatment on an NCI Surgery Branch Gene Therapy Trial as required by the FDA. Eligibility: Participants must have been enrolled on an NCI Surgery Branch Gene Therapy Protocol Design Participants will be followed with a physical examination and blood tests for up...
The basic mechanisms underlying comprehension of spoken language are still largely unknown. Over the past decade, the study team has gained new insights to how the human brain extracts the most fundamental linguistic elements (consonants and vowels) from a complex and highly variable acoustic signal. However, the next set of questions await pertaining to the sequencing of those auditory elements and how they are integrated with other features, such as, the amplitude envelope of speech. Further investigation of the cortical representation of speech sounds can likely shed light on these fundamental questions. Previous research has ...
An open-label, single institutional phase II trial of losartan in patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors with an individual stepped-wedge, randomized, assessor-blinded, dose-finding design on three indications.
This study aims to treat patients who have been diagnosed with brain cancer including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The treatment combines two different approaches to fight cancer: immune modulators and antigen-specific T cells. Immune checkpoint antibodies have been tested on various tumors with good outcomes. GBM is known to express increased levels of certain antigens that can be targeted by antigen-specific T cells. Thus, in this study, the gene-modified T cells specific for GBM antigens will be combined with immune modulatory genes to treat patients in dose escalation cohorts.
This Pilot Study is to investigate the tear proteins in a multitude of cancer types and indulge in biomarker discovery to manufacture simple, accurate, and novel tear-based diagnostic tests.
The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate a new approach for treating large uveal melanomas, a type of eye cancer. The study aims to determine the effectiveness of using intra-arterial melphalan, a chemotherapy drug, to reduce tumor thickness, allowing for subsequent radiation therapy using a Ru-106 plaque. The main questions this trial seeks to answer are: - Can intra-arterial melphalan effectively reduce the thickness of large uveal melanomas? - Is the combination of intra-arterial melphalan and brachytherapy a safe and effective treatment option for these tumors? Participants enrolled in the trial...
The goal of this multi-center clinical trial is to evaluate the effectiveness of MRI-based computer-aided diagnosis software (V1) for glioma segmentation, gene prediction, and tumor grading. Machine learning methods such as high-precision tumor segmentation and classification and discrimination modeling can further optimize the non-invasive molecular diagnosis and prognosis prediction. The main question it aims to answer is whether the software can predict the molecular type and the prognosis quickly and correctly. The results will be compared with the real-world clinical data double-blindly. Finally, form a set of user-friendly...
With so many therapeutic options available (i.e.: biologic therapy, liver directed therapy, radiotherapy and chemotherapy), the purpose of this project is to partner with patients on comparative effectiveness research (CER) to achieve the goal of alleviating undue toxicity, and optimizing effectiveness and sequencing of therapy for neuroendocrine tumors (NET) patients. We will conduct a study of all newly occurring GEP-NET and lung NET cases aged 18 years and older diagnosed between 01/01/2018 through 12/31/2023 across 14 sites participating in the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet), enrolling an average of ...