RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy such as gemcitabine use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Celecoxib may stop the growth of pancreatic cancer by stopping blood flow to the tumor and blocking the enzymes necessary for tumor cell growth. Combining gemcitabine with celecoxib may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining gemcitabine with celecoxib in treating patients who have metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Condition	Treatment or Intervention	Phase
recurrent pancreatic cancer stage IVA pancreatic cancer stage IVB pancreatic cancer	Drug: celecoxib  Drug: gemcitabine  Procedure: anti-cytokine therapy  Procedure: antiangiogenesis therapy  Procedure: biological response modifier therapy  Procedure: chemotherapy  Procedure: enzyme inhibitor therapy  Procedure: growth factor antagonist therapy	Phase II

Further Study Details: 

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine the overall survival at 6 months in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer treated with gemcitabine and celecoxib.
• Determine the objective tumor response, progression-free survival, and median survival of patients treated with this regimen.
• Determine the safety and toxicity of this regimen in these patients.

OUTLINE: This is a nonrandomized, open-label, multicenter study.

Patients receive gemcitabine IV over 65 minutes on days 1, 8, and 15 and oral celecoxib twice daily on days 1-28. Courses repeat every 4 weeks in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed monthly for 6 months from study entry and then every 3 months thereafter.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 40 patients will be accrued for this study within 8 months.

Genders Eligible for Study:  Both

Criteria

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically or cytologically confirmed metastatic pancreatic cancer
• Radiographic evidence of disease
• No known brain metastases

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS: Age

• Any age

Performance status

• ECOG 0-2 OR
• Karnofsky 60-100%

Life expectancy

• Not specified

Hematopoietic

• WBC at least 3,000/mm^3
• Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,500/mm^3
• Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic

• Bilirubin no greater than 1.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN)
• AST/ALT no greater than 2.5 times ULN

Renal

• Creatinine normal OR
• Creatinine clearance at least 60 mL/min

Cardiovascular

• No symptomatic congestive heart failure
• No unstable angina pectoris
• No cardiac arrhythmia

Gastrointestinal

• No history of peptic ulcer disease
• No gastrointestinal bleeding within the past 3 months

Other

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception
• No prior allergic reactions to compounds of similar chemical or biological composition to study drugs or to sulfonamides
• No prior allergic reaction, asthma, or urticaria after taking aspirin or NSAIDs
• No ongoing or active infection
• No other uncontrolled illness
• No psychiatric illness or social situation that would preclude study compliance
• No other malignancy within the past 5 years except basal cell skin cancer or carcinoma in situ of the cervix

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY: Biologic therapy

• Not specified

Chemotherapy

• No prior chemotherapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer
• More than 6 months since prior neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (including gemcitabine) for pancreatic cancer

Endocrine therapy

• Not specified

Radiotherapy

• See Chemotherapy
• More than 6 months since prior radiotherapy

Surgery

• Not specified

Other

• More than 30 days since prior investigational agents
• No other concurrent investigational or commercial agents or therapies for the malignancy
• No other concurrent nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
• No other concurrent cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors (e.g., rofecoxib)
• Concurrent acetaminophen-containing medications or low-dose aspirin (up to 325 mg/day) for cardiac prophylaxis allowed

Arkansas
      Hembree Mercy Cancer Center at St. Edward Mercy Medical Center, Fort Smith,  Arkansas,  72913,  United States; Recruiting
Florida
      M.D. Anderson Cancer Center - Orlando, Orlando,  Florida,  32806-2134,  United States; Recruiting
Georgia
      CCOP - Atlanta Regional, Atlanta,  Georgia,  30342-1701,  United States; Recruiting
Illinois
      CCOP - Carle Cancer Center, Urbana,  Illinois,  61801,  United States; Recruiting
Kansas
      CCOP - Wichita, Wichita,  Kansas,  67214-3882,  United States; Recruiting
Missouri
      CCOP - Cancer Research for the Ozarks, Springfield,  Missouri,  65807,  United States; Recruiting
      CCOP - Kansas City, Kansas City,  Missouri,  64131,  United States; Recruiting
Ohio
      CCOP - Dayton, Dayton,  Ohio,  45429,  United States; Recruiting
Oregon
      CCOP - Columbia River Oncology Program, Portland,  Oregon,  97225,  United States; Recruiting
Texas
      MD Anderson Cancer Center at University of Texas, Houston,  Texas,  77030-4009,  United States; Recruiting
Wisconsin
      All Saints Cancer Center at All Saints Healthcare, Racine,  Wisconsin,  53405,  United States; Recruiting

Study chairs or principal investigators

Henry Qinghua Xiong, MD, PhD,  Principal Investigator,  M.D. Anderson Cancer Center   
Sandra Sinclair, RN,  M.D. Anderson Cancer Center   

Study ID Numbers:  CDR0000322827; MDA-2003-0288; NCI-6167; NCT00068432
Record last reviewed:  September 2004
Last Updated:  April 4, 2005
Record first received:  September 10, 2003
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:  NCT00068432
Health Authority: United States: Federal Government
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on 2005-04-08