A Phase 1 interventional study of rhIL-15 and Dinituximab in Neuroblastoma, sponsored by National Cancer Institute (NCI). Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 3 Years to 35 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-21.
Sponsored by National Cancer Institute (NCI) · Phase 1, Interventional, and Treatment
Among 69 studies in Neuroblastoma by National Cancer Institute (NCI) — 6 open to participants now, 15 under way, 1 of them phase 3. Neuroblastoma · National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Among the 69 studies in Neuroblastoma by National Cancer Institute (NCI), this one is the 25th largest by planned enrollment of the 59 interventional ones that give a count, is the only one that started in 2025, is one of 30 in phase 1, reaches primary completion later than 10 of the 12 other live ones, and was the 68th registered.
675 studies on the registry are indexed under Neuroblastoma; 127 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 40 is above the median of 32 across 507 interventional studies indexed under Neuroblastoma.
Browse Neuroblastoma studies →6 of the 69 studies in Neuroblastoma by National Cancer Institute (NCI) are open now, in 5 countries. Each count lists the studies.
Of the 104 Neuroblastoma studies recruiting now, 25 (24%) set no upper age limit and 74 (71%) stop at 75 or younger; 101 take children under 18; 3 take healthy volunteers.
This study: 3 Years to 35 Years · all sexes · no healthy volunteers.
The full table on the hub →69 studies; the count open now beside each. This study's row is marked.
First in 1993; this study’s year is marked. 1 started in 2025.
Median enrollment 30 across the 59 interventional studies, 1,720 across the 5 observational. Of the 51 that completed or were terminated, 15 (29%) have results posted.
National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the lead sponsor of 3,556 studies on the registry; 336 are open to participants now.
Of its 411 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 373 (91%) have results posted.
1 of the studies in Neuroblastoma by National Cancer Institute (NCI) that are under way reach primary completion within a year, 0 of them phase 3. Phase 3 first, then by date:
| Study | Primary completion |
|---|---|
| NCT06041516National Cancer Institute (NCI)A First-in-Human Phase I Trial With Antibody Drug Conjugate ADCT-701 in Neuroendocrine Tumors, Carcinomas and Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumors | 2027-10-30 |
Among the 69 studies in Neuroblastoma by National Cancer Institute (NCI), from their registry updates:
Background:
Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that causes tumors in nerves. It affects mainly infants and toddlers, and it causes about 15 percent of cancer-related deaths in children.
Objective:
To test a new drug (rhIL-15), combined with 3 standard cancer drugs, in people with neuroblastoma.
Eligibility:
People aged 3 to 35 years with neuroblastoma that did not respond or returned after standard treatment.
Design:
Participants will be screened. They will have a physical exam with blood and urine tests. They will have imaging scans and tests of their heart and lungs. They will have a bone marrow biopsy: A sample of tissue and fluid from inside a bone will be removed with a large needle.
Participants will be treated in 21-day cycles. They may have up to 4 treatment cycles.
rhIL-15 is given through a needle into a vein over 5 to 7 days during the first week of each cycle. Participants will stay in the hospital while they are receiving the rhIL-15.
Starting in the second week of the second cycle, participants will receive other drugs for treating cancer. They will have no study treatments during the third week of each cycle.
Participants will visit the clinic at least 2 times a week throughout all 4 treatment cycles. They will have a physical exam and blood tests during these visits. Imaging scans, bone marrow biopsy, and other tests will be repeated at the end of cycles 2 and 4.
Participants will have a follow-up visit 6 months after treatment ends. This visit will include a physical exam with blood and urine tests.
BACKGROUND:
Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial pediatric solid tumor, accounting for approximately 15 percent of all childhood cancer-related deaths. Neuroblastoma predominantly affects infants and toddlers and manifests as a solid tumor of the parasympathetic ganglia. Despite multi-modal therapy including multiagent induction chemotherapy, surgery, consolidation with tandem autologous bone marrow transplantation, radiation, anti-GD2 antibody therapy plus GMCSF, and differentiation therapy with cis-retinoic acid, less than 30 percent of newly-diagnosed patients with high-risk neuroblastoma attain long-term remissions, highlighting the need for new and more effective therapies. Based on our preclinical studies, we are proposing in this study, to evaluate recombinant human interleukin (IL)-15 (rhIL-15) with the FDA-approved anti-GD2 antibody, dinutuximab, and chemotherapy (i.e., irinotecan and temozolomide) in children with relapsed/refractory neuroblastoma with the goal to evaluate the safety, toxicity and RP2D of rhIL-15 as part of this chemo-immunotherapy regimen.
OBJECTIVES:
Primary Objective
-- Assess the safety of rhIL-15 combined with dinutuximab and irinotecan/temozolomide in pediatric and young adult participants with recurrent or refractory neuroblastoma by determining the recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) based on dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) of defined adverse events (AEs).
Secondary Objectives
Exploratory Objectives
Disease Requirements:
Documentation of disease: Participants must have evaluable disease according to the International Neuroblastoma Response Criteria (INRC). This means they must have an area of active disease that can be identified by MIBG, PET, MRI/CT, or bone marrow studies. Participants must have at least ONE of the following at the time of enrollment:
Potential trial participants should have recovered from adverse events of their most recent therapy/intervention prior to enrollment.
Participants who have received drugs that are strong inducers or inhibitors of within 7 days before study enrollment are not eligible.
-Age Requirement:
Age >= 3 years and \<= 35 years at the time of enrollment.
-Clinical Performance Status:
Participants >= 16 years of age: >= 50 percent; Participants \< 16 years of age: Lansky scale >= 50 percent. Participants who are unable to walk because of paralysis, but who are upright in a wheelchair will be considered ambulatory to calculate the performance score.
-Adequate Organ and Marrow Function as Defined Below:
Measured : >= 60 mL/min/1.73 m\^2 for participants with creatinine levels above the max listed below per age:
Pulmonary Function
Participants with respiratory symptoms clinically concerning for decreased pulmonary function must have a DLCO/adjusted > 45 percent. For children who are unable to cooperate for PFTs, they must not have dyspnea at rest or a known requirement for supplemental oxygen.
EXCLUSION CRITERIA:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Relapsed: the illness came back after treatment had worked. Refractory: it did not respond to treatment, or stopped responding while still on it.
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
CYP3A is a group of enzymes, mainly CYP3A4, in the liver and gut that break down many medicines. Some medicines, supplements and foods (grapefruit, St John’s wort) slow them down or speed them up, which changes how much of a study drug stays in the body.
Studies list them so they can be avoided or switched; bring a list of everything you take, including supplements.
A 0–100 scale of how well someone can carry out everyday activities. 100 is no complaints and no signs of illness; 70 is able to look after yourself but not to work or keep up normal activity; 50 is needing considerable help and frequent medical care.
Studies often ask for 60 or 70 and above. Your doctor gives the score.
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
The share of blood the heart’s main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) pushes out with each beat, measured by an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or a MUGA scan. About 50–70% is normal.
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
Biopsy and archival tissue
A biopsy takes a small piece of tissue to examine. “Archival tissue” is a sample already taken, for example at diagnosis, and kept by the hospital.
Whether a stored sample will do depends on when it was taken, how much there is and what the study needs. Ask whether the study accepts your stored sample or needs a new biopsy.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Relapsed and refractory
Relapsed: the illness came back after treatment had worked. Refractory: it did not respond to treatment, or stopped responding while still on it.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Clinically significant
Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Platelets
Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Allogeneic and autologous transplant
Stem cell (bone marrow) transplants. Allogeneic uses cells from a donor; autologous uses your own cells, collected earlier and given back.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
CYP3A (CYP3A4) inhibitors and inducers
CYP3A is a group of enzymes, mainly CYP3A4, in the liver and gut that break down many medicines. Some medicines, supplements and foods (grapefruit, St John’s wort) slow them down or speed them up, which changes how much of a study drug stays in the body.
Studies list them so they can be avoided or switched; bring a list of everything you take, including supplements.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Karnofsky performance status (KPS)
A 0–100 scale of how well someone can carry out everyday activities. 100 is no complaints and no signs of illness; 70 is able to look after yourself but not to work or keep up normal activity; 50 is needing considerable help and frequent medical care.
Studies often ask for 60 or 70 and above. Your doctor gives the score.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Absolute neutrophil count (ANC)
The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.
It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Bilirubin
A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.
Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ULN (upper limit of normal)
The top of the normal range for a blood test, as set by the laboratory that runs it. Each lab prints its own range next to your result.
“≤ 2.5 × ULN” means the result can be up to two and a half times that top value.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
ALT and AST (liver enzymes)
Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.
Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Creatinine clearance (CrCl)
How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
LVEF (left ventricular ejection fraction)
The share of blood the heart’s main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) pushes out with each beat, measured by an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or a MUGA scan. About 50–70% is normal.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Contraception
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Investigational drug or device
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Immunosuppression
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Corticosteroids (steroids)
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
HIV
The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.
Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis B tests
Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.
Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hepatitis C tests
Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.
After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Hypersensitivity
An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Cancer (malignancy)
Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.
Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Participants will receive dinutuximab at a dose of 17.5 mg/m2/day x 4 days, in combination with escalating doses of rhIL-15 and fixed dose irinotecan and temozolomide.
Drug: rhIL-15 · Drug: Dinituximab · Drug: Temozolomide · Drug: Irinotecan Hydrochloride
rhIL-15 will be given at a dose of 0.13-2 mcg/kg/day (based on dose level) as a continuous IV infusion for 5 days each cycle.
Dinituximab will be given at a dose of 17.5 mg/m\^2/dose by IV on days 2-5 of each cycle.
Temozolomide will be given orally (PO) at a dose based on weight on days 1-5 of each cycle beginning with cycle 2.
Irinotecan will be given at a dose of 50 mg/m\^2/dose by IV on days 1-5 of each cycle beginning with cycle 2.
Assess the safety and determine the MTD of rhIL-15 combined with dinutuximab/temozolomide/irinotecan
Assessment of AEs and DLTs in participants.
Time frame: 6 weeks
Anti-tumor activity
Response will be evaluated by applying the INRC after even numbers of cycles. This includes response at the following sites: Primary tumor, metastatic soft tissue and bone site, bone marrow.
Time frame: 6 months
Pharmacokinetics
rhIL-15 levels in the plasma of participants at various timepoints after initiation of the rhIL-15 infusion.
Time frame: 3 weeks
Plan to share: Yes — This study will comply with the NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy, which applies to all new and ongoing NIH-funded research in the IRP, as of January 25, 2023, that is associated with a ZIA, with a clinical protocol that undergoes scientific review and/or will involve genomic data sharing.
Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form
Time frame: Data will be made available as soon as possible or at the time of associated publication. Data not published in a manuscript will be shared via public source once the data set completes QC.
Access criteria: The scientific data will be findable by key words or MeSH terms used during publication of manuscripts.
Started Oct 2025 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Jun 2028, 31 months after the start.
Of 73 non-industry phase 1 interventional studies under Neuroblastoma, half reached primary completion within 89 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 65 and three quarters within 117. This study's planned 31 months is below that.
Counting every sponsor, half of 86 studies reached it within 83 months; a quarter within 60 and three quarters within 114.
How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.
From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
Eligibility is decided by the study team. Share this record with your doctor or contact the team directly.
Contact study teamGet an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.
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Studies of the drug tested here: Recombinant human INTERLEUKIN-15
National Cancer Institute (NCI) →