Most Closely HLA-Matched CTLs for Relapsed Epstein Barr Virus(EBV)-Associated Diseases

Summary

Patients have a type of a lymph node cancer called lymphoma, a tumor of the nasal passages called nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), a tumor of a particular type of muscle called leiomyosarcoma (LMS) or a condition called severe chronic active EBV (SCAEBV) syndrome. The disease has come back, may come back or has not gone away after treatment. This voluntary research study uses special immune system cells called LMP-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes, a new experimental therapy. Some patients with these diseases show evidence of infection with the virus that causes infectious mononucleosis (called Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV) before or at the time of their diagnosis. EBV is found in the cancer cells of up to half of the patients with lymphomas, and in some cases of NPC and LMS, suggesting that it may play a role in causing these diseases. Those cancer cells (as well as some B cells in SCAEBV) that are infected by EBV are able to hide from the body's immune system and escape destruction. We want to see if special white blood cells, called T cells, that have been trained to kill cells infected by EBV can survive in the blood and affect the tumor. This treatment with specially trained T cells has had activity against these viruses when the cells are made from patients with those diseases (or, after bone marrow transplant, from the patient's transplant donor). However, sometimes it is not possible to grow these cells; other times, it may take 2 to 3 months to make the cells, which may be too long when one has an active tumor. We are therefore asking if subjects would like to participate in this study, which tests if blood cells from a donor that is a partial match with the subject (or the transplant donor) that have been grown in the way described above can survive in the blood and affect the disease. These LMP-specific CTLs are an investigational product not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Timeline

Start

2012-02

Primary completion

2015-03

Completion

2020-01-22

Drugs

Indications