Conditions: Adenocarcinoma of the Extrahepatic Bile Duct Adenocarcinoma of the Gallbladder Advanced Adult Primary Liver Cancer Gastrointestinal Cancer Localized Unresectable Adult Primary Liver Cancer Recurrent Adult Primary Liver Cancer Recurrent Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Recurrent Gallbladder Cancer Unresectable Extrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer Unresectable Gallbladder Cancer
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 20
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
This phase II trial is studying how well bortezomib works as first-line systemic therapy in treating patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic adenocarcinoma (cancer) of the bile duct or gallbladder. Bortezomib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking the enzymes necessary for their growth.

Detailed description:
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Determine the objective response rate in patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic adenocarcinoma of the bile duct or gallbladder treated with bortezomib.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Determine the time to disease progression in patients treated with this drug.

II. Determine the overall survival of patients treated with this drug. III. Correlate the degree of proteasome inhibition in peripheral blood with degree of proteasome inhibition in tumor specimens of patients treated with this drug.

IV. Correlate phenotypic expression of NF-kB, p53, and other molecular markers in biliary washings and tumor biopsies with clinical outcomes in patients treated with this drug.

V. Correlate treatment with this drug with changes in phenotypic expression of molecular markers in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is an open-label, multicenter study.

Patients receive bortezomib IV over 3-5 seconds on days 1, 4, 8, and 11. Courses repeat every 21 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed every 3 months for 1 year.

Arms:
arm 1: Patients receive bortezomib IV over 3-5 seconds on days 1, 4, 8, and 11.

Interventions: intervention 1: bortezomib
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Given IV

Protocol document: