• Presence of endogenous cellular or humoral immunity [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Induction of cellular immunity [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Type and characteristics of cellular immunity [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
• Tolerability [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
• Toxicity [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
• Feasibility of expanding specific T-cell clones [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

• Presence of endogenous cellular or humoral immunity
• Induction of cellular immunity
• Type and characteristics of cellular immunity
• Tolerability
• Toxicity
• Feasibility of expanding specific T-cell clones

RATIONALE: Vaccines may help the body build an immune response to kill tumor cells.

PURPOSE: This randomized phase II trial is studying four different regimens of vaccine therapy and comparing how well they work in treating patients with metastatic kidney cancer.

OBJECTIVES:

• Determine whether endogenous cellular or humoral immunity to a tumor-specific mutated von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) protein is present in patients with renal cell carcinoma.
• Determine whether vaccination with synthetic peptide corresponding to the tumor's VHL mutation can induce or boost a patient's cellular immunity to that particular mutation.
• Determine the type and characteristics of the cellular immunity generated in these patients.
• Determine tolerance by the patients to this regimen.
• Determine the toxicity spectrum of these peptides in these patients.
• Determine the feasibility of expanding specific T-cell clones (peptide-activated lymphocytes) under guanosine monophosphate conditions.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized, pilot study. Patients are randomized to one of four treatment arms.

• Arm I (closed to accrual 12/31/01): Patients receive vaccination with peptide-pulsed antigen-presenting cells.
• Arm II: Patients receive mutant von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) peptide vaccination emulsified with Montanide ISA-51 (ISA-51) subcutaneously (SC).
• Arm III: Patients receive mutant VHL peptide and interleukin-2 emulsified with ISA-51 SC.
• Arm IV: Patients receive VHL peptide and sargramostim (GM-CSF) emulsified with ISA-51 SC.

Vaccinations are repeated in each arm every 4 weeks for a total of 4 vaccinations. Patients with stable or responding disease receive 2 additional vaccinations and may repeat treatment every 4 weeks in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. If there is disease progression with a specific immunologic response after 4 vaccinations, patients have the option of receiving 2 additional vaccinations.

Patients are followed at 2 months and then every 2 months until disease progression.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 60 patients will be accrued for this study within 2-3 years.

• Biological: aldesleukin
• Biological: incomplete Freund's adjuvant
• Biological: sargramostim
• Biological: von Hippel-Lindau peptide vaccine

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Histologically confirmed metastatic renal cell carcinoma for which there are no further chemotherapy or radiotherapy options known to increase survival

• Must have tumor tissue available for determination of von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) mutation

  • Must be found to have VHL mutation in tumor to receive treatment
• No history of CNS metastases

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

• 18 and over

Performance status:

• ECOG 0-1

Life expectancy:

• More than 3 months

Hematopoietic:

• WBC at least 2,000/mm^3
• Platelet count at least 100,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

• Bilirubin no greater than 2.0 mg/dL
• SGOT or SGPT no greater than 4 times normal
• Hepatitis B and C negative

Renal:

• Creatinine no greater than 2.0 mg/dL

Cardiovascular:

• No active ischemic heart disease (New York Heart Association class III or IV cardiac disease)
• No history of myocardial infarction within the last 6 months
• No history of congestive heart failure
• No ventricular arrhythmias or other arrhythmias requiring therapy

Immunologic:

• No prior autoimmune neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, or hemolytic anemia
• No prior systemic lupus erythematosus
• No prior Sjögren's syndrome
• No prior scleroderma
• No prior myasthenia gravis
• No prior Goodpasture's syndrome
• No prior Addison's disease
• No prior Hashimoto's thyroiditis
• No prior rheumatoid arthritis
• No prior multiple sclerosis
• No active Graves' disease
• HIV negative

Other:

• Not pregnant or nursing
• Negative pregnancy test
• Fertile patients must use effective contraception

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

• At least 4 weeks since prior immunotherapy and recovered

Chemotherapy:

• See Disease Characteristics
• At least 4 weeks since prior chemotherapy and recovered

Endocrine therapy:

• At least 4 weeks since prior steroids and recovered

Radiotherapy:

• See Disease Characteristics
• At least 4 weeks since prior radiotherapy and recovered

Surgery:

• Surgical biopsy of tumor tissue allowed