Chemotherapy and Donor Stem Transplant for the Treatment of Patients With High Grade Brain Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: I. To assess tolerability of allogenic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) among patients with chemo-responsive high-grade central nervous system (CNS) malignancies as defined by transplant-related mortality (TRM) at day 30 as well as rate of grade III organ toxicity or higher (Bearman Regimen-Related Toxicities Scale) attributable to conditioning occurring within 30 days. SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: I. Median time to platelet and neutrophil engraftment. II. Incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) by day 100. III. Incidence of chronic GVHD at day 100 and one year. IV. Rate of grade II organ toxicity through day 100. V. Rate of graft failure (primary and secondary) through day 100. VI. Rate of infectious complications through day 100. VII. Progression free survival at day 180. VIII. Cumulative incidence of relapse, overall survival, and progression-free survival at 100 days and 1 year. OUTLINE: Patients receive thiotepa intravenously (IV) over 2-4 hours and etoposide IV over 60 minutes on days -8 to -6, melphalan IV over 20 minutes on days -5 and -4, and fludarabine phosphate IV over 1 hour on days -5 to -3. Patients receiving umbilical cord transplant only also receive lapine T-lymphocyte immune globulin IV over 4-12 hours on days -4 and -3. Patients then undergo HCT on day 0. Patients also receive tacrolimus IV or cyclosporine IV beginning on day -2 to and mycophenolate mofetil orally (PO) every 8 hours or IV from days 0-40 and tapered to day 90. After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 100, 180, 270 and 360 days.