Tumor lysate-pulsed DC vaccination(Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center)

The primary purpose of this phase II clinical trial is to determine the safety and effect on survival of patients autologous dendritic cells pulsed with autologous tumor lysate as a treatment for low-grade glioma patients. Other goals of this study are to determine if the vaccine can cause an immune response against patients' cancer cells and slow the growth of their brain tumors

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the most effective immunotherapy vaccine components in patients with malignant glioma. Teh investigators previous phase I study (IRB #03-04-053) already confirmed that this vaccine procedure is safe in patients with malignant brain tumors, and with an indication of extended survival in several patients. However, the previous trial design did not allow us to test which formulation of the vaccine was the most effective. This phase II study will attempt to dissect out which components are most effective together. Dendritic cells (DC) (cells which "present" or "show" cell identifiers to the immune system) isolated from the subject's own blood will be treated with tumor-cell lysate isolated from tumor tissue taken from the same subject during surgery. This pulsing (combining) of antigen-presenting and tumor lysate will be done to try to stimulate the immune system to recognize and destroy the patient's intracranial brain tumor. These pulsed DCs will then be injected back into the patient intradermally as a vaccine. The investigators will also utilize adjuvant imiquimod or poly ICLC (interstitial Cajal-like cell) in some treatment cohorts. It is thought that the host immune system might be taught to "recognize" the malignant brain tumor cells as "foreign" to the body by effectively presenting unique tumor antigens to the host immune cells (T-cells) in vivo.