Overview
To learn how radiation treatment may affect your responses to vaccines against pneumonia.
Description
Primary Objectives
\- Determine the impact of Grade IV radiation-induced lymphopenia on serologic responses to pneumococcal vaccination.
Secondary Objectives
- Determine the impact of chemoradiation on serologic responses to pneumococcal vaccination.
- Determine the impact of radiation modality on serologic responses to pneumococcal vaccination.
- Determine the impact of radiation modality on systemic immunity.
- Determine the incidence of pneumonia among patients treated with a pneumococcal vaccine.
- Determine the impact of radiation modality on pathologic response.
- Determine the impact of radiation modality on intratumoral immunity.
- Determine the relationship between changes in systemic and intratumoral immunity and clinical outcomes (i.e., incidence of pneumonia and pathologic response)
- Determine the impact of tumor histology on serologic responses to pneumococcal vaccination.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- Group 1A
- Patients currently receiving, planning to receive, or recently completed chemoradiation for esophageal cancer with protons.
- Group 1B
- Patients currently receiving, planning to receive, or recently completed chemoradiation for esophageal cancer with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
- Group 2A
- Patients currently receiving, planning to receive, or recently completed definitive proton therapy for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
- Group 2B
- Patients currently receiving, planning to receive, or recently completed definitive IMRT for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.
- Group 3
- Healthy age- and gender- matched individuals
- All Groups
- Patients of all genders, races and nationalities will be solicited.
- Age \>18 years
- Ability to understand and the willingness to sign a written informed consent document.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Patients with compromised immunologic responses due to an uncontrolled intercurrent immunodeficiency (e.g., Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), X-linked agammaglobulinemia) or previous or current immune suppressive therapy
- Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients on effective anti-retroviral therapy with undetectable viral load within 6 months are eligible for this trial.
- Patients receiving intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) during the study or in the three months prior to study enrollment.
- Patients with psychiatric illness/social situations that would limit compliance with study requirements.
- Individuals with previous pneumococcal vaccination in the last 5 years.
- Individuals with severe allergy to any of the vaccine components
