PXD101 in Treating Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Aggressive B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. Evaluate response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with PXD101. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Determine the toxicity of this drug in these patients. II. Estimate the 6-month progression-free survival rate in patients treated with this drug. TERTIARY OBJECTIVES: I. Determine the major histocompatability complex of class II proteins (HLA-DR, -DP, -DQ), TUNEL, and CD8 infiltration status, by immunochemistry on paired pre- and post-treatment tumor samples, in the first 20 patients enrolled. II. Measure CIITA and HLA-DR mRNA expression using quantitative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction and determine, preliminarily, the associations of these markers with progression-free survival. III. Evaluate paired pre- and post-treatment peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients for histone acetylation status and determine correlation with findings from duplicate experiments on pre- and post-needle core biopsies. OUTLINE: This is a multicenter study. Patients receive PXD101 IV over 30 minutes on days 1-5. Treatment repeats every 21 days for up to 2 years in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Needle core biopsies and peripheral blood mononuclear cells are obtained from the first 20 patients pre- and post-treatment for biomarker correlative studies. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed every 3-6 months for up to 3 years.