Conditions: Adult Acute Megakaryoblastic Leukemia (M7) Adult Acute Minimally Differentiated Myeloid Leukemia (M0) Adult Acute Monoblastic Leukemia (M5a) Adult Acute Monocytic Leukemia (M5b) Adult Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia With Maturation (M2) Adult Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia Without Maturation (M1) Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia With 11q23 (MLL) Abnormalities Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia With Inv(16)(p13;q22) Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia With t(16;16)(p13;q22) Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia With t(8;21)(q22;q22) Adult Acute Myelomonocytic Leukemia (M4) Adult Erythroleukemia (M6a) Adult Pure Erythroid Leukemia (M6b) Recurrent Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 52
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The purpose of this study is to test the safety of vorinostat (Zolinza) and azacitidine (Vidaza) when combined with gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO) at different dose levels. These drugs increase the effect of GO against leukemia cells in the test tube, but we don't know yet whether they also increase the anti-leukemia effect of GO in people.

Detailed description:
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Determine the vorinostat dose with the most favorable efficacy and toxicity when combined with azacitidine and GO.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Describe the complete response (CR)/ CR with inadequate recovery (CRi) rate after a total of 6 cycles of therapy.

II. Describe the disease-free survival of patients that achieve CR/CRi. III. Determine whether acute myeloid leukemia (AML) characteristics associated with preclinical GO efficacy predict for clinical benefit, and assess whether differentiation-inducing agents modulate these characteristics and lower the apoptotic threshold for calicheamicin-gamma1-induced cytotoxicity (in vitro correlative and mechanistic studies).

OUTLINE: This is phase I, dose-escalation study of vorinostat followed by a phase II study.

Patients receive vorinostat orally (PO) on days 1-9, azacitidine subcutaneously (SC) or intravenously (IV) over 10-40 minutes on days 1-7, and gemtuzumab ozogamicin IV over 2 hours on day 4 and 8. Treatment repeats every 21 days for up to 12 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up every 3 months for 3 years.

Arms:
arm 1: Varying schedules and dose levels of vorinostat, azacitidine and gemtuzumab ozogamicin. Includes cohorts 1-3. arm 2: Vorinostat 400 mg/day on days 1-9, azacitidine 75 mg/m2/day on days 1-7, gemtuzumab ozogamicin 3 mg/m2/day on days 4 and 8.

Interventions: intervention 1: vorinostat intervention 2: gemtuzumab ozogamicin intervention 3: azacitidine
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Given orally intervention 2: Given intravenously (IV) intervention 3: Given IV or subcutaneously (SC)

Protocol document: