Therapeutic Autologous Lymphocytes, Cyclophosphamide, and Aldesleukin in Treating Patients With Stage IV Melanoma

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. To assess the safety and toxicity of cellular adoptive immunotherapy in melanoma patients receiving autologous CD8+ antigen-specific T cell clones following cyclophosphamide conditioning and post-infusion IL-2. II. To assess the duration of in vivo persistence of adoptively transferred CD8+ T cell clones. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Evaluate the antitumor effect of adoptively transferred CD8+ antigenspecific cytotoxic t lymphocytes (CTL) clones following cyclophosphamide conditioning and post-infusion IL-2. OUTLINE: Patients are assigned 1of 2 treatment cohorts. All patients receive high-dose cyclophosphamide intravenously (IV) on days -3 and -2 and autologous antigen-specific cytotoxic CD8+ T lymphocyte clones IV over 30-60 minutes on day 0. COHORT I: Beginning within 6 hours of T cell infusion, patients receive low-dose aldesleukin subcutaneously (SC) twice daily on days 0-14. COHORT II: Beginning within 6 hours of T cell infusion, patients receive high-dose aldesleukin IV 3 times daily on days 0-5. Treatment continues in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and every 3 months thereafter for up to 1 year.