Accelerated Checkpoint Therapy for Any Steroid Dependent Patient With Brain Metastases
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2025-09-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Immunotherapy treatments are intended to boost a person's immune system to fight their
cancer. Treatment with immunotherapy has been shown to be effective in a wide range of
cancers, including melanoma skin cancer, lung cancer and kidney cancer, among others.
Steroids are anti-inflammatory medications which may suppress the immune system. For this
reason, persons requiring treatment with steroids have not previously been allowed to
participate in immunotherapy clinical trials. Therefore, we do not know whether or not
immunotherapy treatments are effective in patients who are also receiving treatment with
steroids.
When cancer has spread to the brain swelling may occur around the tumors, and headache,
nausea, seizures or stroke-like symptoms may occur. In this instance, steroids are important
to reduce swelling within the brain, thus alleviating these symptoms.
Because patients requiring treatment with steroids have not previously been allowed to
participate in immunotherapy clinical trials, we do not know whether treatment with
immunotherapy is effective when steroid treatments are also used. This study will investigate
this question, and also attempt to determine whether treatment with one steroid versus
another results in a better response to immunotherapy.