Vaccine Therapy and Cyclophosphamide in Treating Patients With Stage II-III Breast or Stage II-IV Ovarian, Primary Peritoneal, or Fallopian Tube Cancer

This phase I clinical trial studies the side effects of vaccine therapy and cyclophosphamide in treating patients with stage II-III breast cancer or stage II-IV ovarian, primary peritoneal or fallopian tube cancer. Vaccines made from peptides may help the body build an effective immune response to kill tumor cells. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as cyclophosphamide, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. Giving vaccine therapy and cyclophosphamide may kill more tumor cells.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: I. To assess the safety of administering one cycle of cyclophosphamide and six subsequent monthly vaccinations with a peptide-based vaccine targeting folate receptor (FR)-alpha (multi-epitope folate receptor alpha peptide vaccine). II. To assess the ability of this vaccination protocol to elicit an immune response as measured by activated FR-alpha-specific T lymphocytes or high-affinity antibodies. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. To determine FR-alpha expression status of primary tumors when available as formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded material and whether expression correlates with the ability to generate an immune response. II. To identify human lymphocyte antigen (HLA) class I binding peptides from FR-alpha that are recognized by lymphocytes from patients prior to and after vaccination. III. To determine whether cyclophosphamide treatment, prior to vaccination, results in regulatory T cell depletion by assessing regulatory T cells before and immediately after cyclophosphamide treatment. IV. To compare FR-alpha (FRa) expression levels in tumor removed at primary surgery to FRa expression levels in tumor removed for clinical purposes at disease recurrence. (For ovarian cancer patients whose disease recurs.) OUTLINE: Patients receive cyclophosphamide orally (PO) twice daily (BID) on days 1-7 and 15-21 of course 1. Within 3-5 days, patients receive multi-epitope folate receptor alpha peptide vaccine intradermally (ID) on day 1. Vaccine treatment repeats every 28 days for up to 6 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 3, 6, and 12 months.