NCT04804709

Non-Invasive Focused Ultrasound (FUS) With Oral Panobinostat in Children With Progressive Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG)

A Feasibility Study Examining the Use of Non-Invasive Focused Ultrasound (FUS) With Oral Panobinostat Administration in Children With Progressive Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG)

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 5 (actual)
• Sponsor: Columbia University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 4 Years – 21 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The blood brain barrier (BBB) prevents some drugs from successfully reaching the target tumor. Focused Ultrasound (FUS) using microbubbles and neuro-navigator-controlled sonication is a non-invasive method of temporarily opening up the blood brain barrier to allow a greater concentration of the drug to reach into the brain tumor. This may improve response and may also reduce system side effects in the patient. The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of safely opening the BBB in children with progressive diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) treated with oral Panobinostat using FUS with microbubbles and neuro-navigator-controlled sonication. For the purpose of the study, the investigators will be opening up the BBB temporarily in one, two, or three locations around the tumor using the non-invasive FUS technology, and administrating oral Panobinostat in children with progressive DMG.

Detailed description

Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs), constitute 10% of all pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumors. Subjects with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG) have a poor prognosis with a median survival that is usually reported to be 9 months, and nearly 90% of children die within 18 months from diagnosis. The mainstay of treatment is radiation to the primary tumor site. Surgical resection does not influence the outcome and is often not feasible in this part of the central nervous system. Many promising drugs for central nervous system (CNS) disorders have failed to attain clinical success due to an intact blood brain barrier (BBB), limiting their access from the systemic circulation into the brain. Systemic administration of high doses may increase delivery to the brain, but this approach risks significant side effects and systemic toxicities. Direct delivery of the drugs to the brain by injection into the parenchyma bypasses the BBB, however, drug distribution from the site of injection tends to be limited. The technique of using focused ultrasound (FUS) with microbubbles and neuro-navigator-controlled sonication can temporarily open up the blood brain barrier and allow for a greater concentration of drug to reach the tumor, thus potentially improving response in patients. With the current study, the investigators are planning to evaluate the safety and feasibility of using FUS and open-space neuronavigator-controlled sonication to open one, two, or three tumor sites. For the purpose of the study, investigators will be administrating oral Panobinostat in children with progressive DMG. This drug has a known toxicity profile, dose, and well-documented efficacy against many metastatic cancers. Successful opening and closing of the BBB will be confirmed with periodic magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs).

Conditions

• Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma
• Diffuse Pontine and Thalamic Gliomas
• Diffuse Midline Glioma, H3 K27M-Mutant

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DRUG	Panobinostat 15 MG	After each instance of opening the BBB using specific parameters of focused ultrasound in the specific number of tumor sites (one, two, or three), the subjects will receive oral Panobinostat (15 mg/m\^2).
DEVICE	Focused Ultrasound with neuro-navigator-controlled sonication	The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of opening the BBB safely using specific parameters of focused ultrasound in progressive/recurrent diffuse midline gliomas in one, two, or three tumor sites. The trial will follow a 3+3 Number of Tumor Sites (NOTS) escalation scheme. The "number of tumor sites" in reference to here is the number of openings in the blood-brain barrier using Focused Ultrasound (FUS). Subjects will start the first cycle of the treatment arm with 1 tumor site and move on to incrementing NOTS levels if no dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs) are observed.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-07-28
• Primary completion: 2022-03-01
• Completion: 2022-03-31
• First posted: 2021-03-18
• Last updated: 2025-06-08
• Results posted: 2025-06-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated drug study
• FDA-regulated device study