Lymphoproliferative Disorders clinical trials at UCLA

This pilot phase II trial studies how well rituximab and latent membrane protein (LMP)-specific T-cells work in treating pediatric solid organ recipients with Epstein-Barr virus-positive, cluster of differentiation (CD)20-positive post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder. Rituximab is a monoclonal antibody that may interfere with the ability of cancer cells to grow and spread. LMP-specific T-cells are special immune system cells trained to recognize proteins found on post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder tumor cells if they are infected with Epstein-Barr virus. Giving rituximab and LMP-specific T-cells may work better in treating pediatric organ recipients with post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder than rituximab alone.

The TEAMMATE Trial will enroll 210 pediatric heart transplant patients from 25 centers at 6 months post-transplant and follow each patient for 2.5 years. Half of the participants will receive everolimus and low-dose tacrolimus and the other half will receive tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil. The trial will determine which treatment is better at reducing the cumulative risk of coronary artery vasculopathy, chronic kidney disease and biopsy proven-acute cellular rejection without an increase in graft loss due to all causes (e.g. infection, PTLD, antibody mediated rejection).