CCI-779 in Treating Patients With Recurrent or Refractory B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma or Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as CCI-779, work in different ways to stop cancer cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. This phase II trial is studying how well CCI-779 works in treating patients with recurrent or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Primary Outcome Measures:

Objective Overall Response Rate [ Time Frame: Up to 6 years ] - The 1999 international response criteria (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10655437#) as published by Cheson was used for the definition of target lesions and CT scans were used for response assessment. CR(complete response)/CRu(unconfirmed complete response) requires disappearance of all target lesions; PR (partial response) requires >=50% decrease in the sum of the products of the greatest diameters; Overall Response (OR)=CR/CRu+PR.

Duration of Response [ Time Frame: Up to 6 years ] - Duration of response was the time from date of response to date of progression and evaluated among participants with response. According to the 1999 international response criteria as published by Cheson, progression/progressive disease is defined as >=50% increase from nadir in the sum of the products of the greatest diameters of any previously identified abnormal node for PRs or nonresponders, or appearance of any new lesion during or at the end of therapy.

Overall Survival [ Time Frame: Up to 6 years ] - The overall survival was evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier estimator.

Primary Objectives:

I. Determine the complete and partial response rate in patients with recurrent or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated with CCI-779.

II. Determine the toxicity and safety of this drug in these patients.

III. Correlate the degree of activation of P13/AKT/mTOR pathway and levels of CDK inhibitors with response in patients treated with this drug.

IV. Correlate CCI-779 induced inactivation of mTOR with response in these patients.

Outline:

Patients are stratified according to disease (aggressive lymphoma [group A] vs follicular lymphoma [group B] vs small lymphocytic lymphoma or chronic lymphocytic leukemia [group C]).

Patients receive CCI-779 IV over 30 minutes on days 1, 8, 15, and 22. Courses repeat every 28 days in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Patients are followed every 8 weeks.