Vorinostat With or Without Isotretinoin in Treating Young Patients With Recurrent or Refractory Solid Tumors, Lymphoma, or Leukemia

Inclusion Criteria:

Histologically confirmed* diagnosis of 1 of the following:

Recurrent or refractory solid tumor or lymphoma (for patients in group 1)

Measurable or evaluable disease

Recurrent or refractory leukemia (for patients in group 2)

Greater than 25% blasts in the bone marrow (i.e., M3 bone marrow)
Active extramedullary disease allowed except leptomeningeal disease

Recurrent or refractory CNS tumor of 1 of the following types (for patients in group 3):

Neuroblastoma
Medulloblastoma/CNS primitive neuroectodermal tumor
Atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor
No known curative therapy or therapy proven to prolong survival with an acceptable quality of life exists
No bone marrow involvement by disease (for patients in groups 1 and 3)
No active CNS leukemia
Performance status - Lansky 50-100% (for patients ≤ 10 years of age)
Performance status - Karnofsky 60-100% (for patients > 10 years of age)
Absolute neutrophil count ≥ 1,000/mm^3 (for solid tumor patients)
Platelet count ≥ 100,000/mm^3* (for solid tumor patients) (20,000/mm^3** for leukemia patients)
Hemoglobin ≥ 8.0 g/dL (RBC transfusion allowed) (for solid tumor and leukemia patients)
Triglycerides < 300 mg/dL (for patients in group 3)
Bilirubin ≤ 1.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN)
ALT ≤ 5 times ULN
Albumin ≥ 2 g/dL
Creatinine clearance or radioisotope glomerular filtration rate ≥ 70 mL/min

Creatinine based on age as follows:

No greater than 0.8 mg/dL (for patients ≤ 5 years of age)
No greater than 1.0 mg/dL (for patients 6 to 10 years of age)
No greater than 1.2 mg/dL (for patients 11 to 15 years of age)
No greater than 1.5 mg/dL (for patients over 15 years of age)
Negative dipstick for protein OR < 1,000 mg protein/24 hour urine collection (for patients in group 3)
No evidence of gross hematuria (for patients in group 3)
Not pregnant or nursing
Negative pregnancy test
Fertile patients must use effective contraception
Body surface area ≥ 0.5 m^2
Neurologic deficits in patients with CNS tumors must be stable for ≥ 1 week before study entry
Able to swallow whole capsules
No uncontrolled infection
Skin toxicity < grade 1 (for patients in group 3)
Recovered from prior immunotherapy
At least 7 days since prior hematopoietic growth factors
At least 7 days since prior antineoplastic biologic agents

At least 2 months since prior stem cell transplantation or rescue

No evidence of active graft-versus-host disease
No other concurrent biologic therapy or immunotherapy
More than 3 weeks since prior myelosuppressive chemotherapy (6 weeks for nitrosoureas) and recovered
No concurrent chemotherapy
Patients with CNS tumors must be on a stable or decreasing dose of dexamethasone for ≥ 7 days prior to study entry
No concurrent dexamethasone for antinausea or antiemetic therapy
Recovered from prior radiotherapy
At least 2 weeks since prior local, palliative, small-port radiotherapy
At least 3 months since prior total-body irradiation, radiotherapy to the craniospinal area, or radiotherapy to ≥ 50% of the pelvis
At least 6 weeks since other prior substantial radiotherapy to the bone marrow
No concurrent radiotherapy
At least 2 weeks since prior valproic acid
No other concurrent investigational agents
No other concurrent anticancer therapy
No concurrent enzyme-inducing anticonvulsants