Conditions: Pancreatic Cancer
Keywords: recurrent pancreatic cancer stage IV pancreatic cancer
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 30
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Erlotinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking some of the enzymes needed for cell growth. Giving gemcitabine together with erlotinib may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving gemcitabine together with erlotinib works in treating patients with metastatic or recurrent pancreatic cancer.

Detailed description:
OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study.

Patients receive gemcitabine hydrochloride IV on days 1, 8, and 15 and oral erlotinib hydrochloride on days 2-5, 9-12, and 16-26. Treatment repeats every 28 days for up to 1 year in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Archived tumor tissue samples are analyzed for the expression of EGFR, HER3, HER2, downstream signaling molecules, and other molecular markers by immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR. The presence of aberrant gene copy numbers (amplification and polysomy) for EGFR, HER3, and HER2 are determined by FISH. Blood samples are collected at baseline and periodically during study for polymorphism analysis and correlative molecular analysis of surrogate endpoint biomarkers.

After completion of study therapy, patients are followed every 3 months.

Arms:
arm 1: The dose for gemcitabine is 1,000 mg/m2 administered over 30 minutes as an intravenous infusion. The doses are administered weekly for 3 weeks (Days 1, 8 and 15) followed by one week of rest during which gemcitabine is not given. This 4 week period (28 days) constitutes a cycle.Erlotinib will be dosed at 150mg orally (tablets) on days 2-5, 9-12, and 16-26 of a 28 day cycle.

Interventions: intervention 1: Erlotinib intervention 2: gemcitabine
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Erlotinib will be administered at 150 mg once daily by mouth on the following schedule: days 2-5, 9-12,16-26. intervention 2: The dose for gemcitabine is 1,000 mg/m2 administered over 30 minutes as an intravenous infusion. The doses are administered weekly for 3 weeks (Days 1, 8 and 15) followed by one week of rest during which gemcitabine is not given. This 4 week period (28 days) constitutes a cycle.

Protocol document: