Vaccine Therapy in Treating Patients With Metastatic Cancer

OBJECTIVES: * Determine whether an immunologic response can be obtained in HLA\*0201-expressing patients with metastatic cancer treated with telomerase: 540-548 peptide vaccine emulsified in Montanide ISA-51. * Determine which vaccine strategy (frequency, schedule, and dosing) is best for future studies in these patients. * Determine the toxicity of this treatment in these patients. * Determine whether prior immunization with telomerase: 540-548 peptide vaccine results in increased clinical response to interleukin-2 in patients with melanoma. OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are stratified according to disease (metastatic cutaneous melanoma vs other tumor types). Patients are randomized to one of three treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive telomerase: 540-548 peptide vaccine emulsified in Montanide ISA-51 subcutaneously (SC) on day 1 of weeks 1-4 and 7-10. Patients also undergo leukapheresis over 3 hours at baseline and after each course of treatment. * Arm II: Patients receive telomerase: 540-548 peptide vaccine emulsified in Montanide ISA-51 SC on day 1 of weeks 1, 4, 7, and 10. Patients also undergo leukapheresis over 3 hours at baseline, after the vaccine on week 4, and after each course of treatment. * Arm III: Patients receive telomerase: 540-548 peptide vaccine emulsified in Montanide ISA-51 SC on days 1-4 of weeks 1, 4, 7, and 10. Patients undergo leukapheresis as in arm II. Treatment in all arms repeats every 13 weeks for 4-6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients with a complete response (CR) receive 1 additional course of treatment after achieving CR. Eligible melanoma patients with progressive disease on vaccine alone on any of the 3 arms may receive interleukin-2 (IL-2) combined with vaccine as in arm II. Beginning the day after each immunization, IL-2 is administered IV over 15 minutes every 8 hours over 4 days on weeks 1, 4, 7, and 10 for a maximum of 12 doses. Patients continuing to experience disease progression on combined vaccine and IL-2 therapy go off study after 2 courses of combined therapy. Patients are followed at 3 weeks. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 90-162 patients (30-54 per treatment arm; 45-81 per stratum) will be accrued for this study within less than 2 years.