6/6/2006 Iowa City, IA staff CancerConsultants.com According to an article recently published in Bone Marrow Transplantation, sucking on ice chips may help to prevent oral mucositis associated with high doses of the chemotherapy agent Alkeran® (melphalan). Oral mucositis (OM) is a common side effect among patients undergoing high-dose cancer therapy and stem cell transplantation. In OM therapy causes damage to the lining of the mouth and digestive system, which can range from irritation to severe pain and ulceration. If OM becomes severe, it can cause so much pain that patients are not able to swallow and need a feeding tube or a tube placed in a vein (total parenteral nutrition or TPN) for nutrition and hydration. Furthermore, OM can lead to a full-body infection and/or a delay in treatment, which may ultimately result in suboptimal outcomes. Researchers continue to evaluate the optimal ways to manage or, ideally, prevent OM in patients treated with high doses of therapy. Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center recently conducted a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of ice chips to prevent or reduce OM in patients treated with high doses of Alkeran. This trial included 40 patients with multiple myeloma. Twenty-one patients received ice chips (cryotherapy) 30 minutes prior to treatment and continued to use the ice chips for six hours. Nineteen patients received normal saline instead of ice chips. Severe OM occurred in 14% of patients treated with ice chips, compared with 74% of patients treated with saline. Individuals treated with [...]

6/6/2006 United Kingdom staff DailyRecord.co.uk A NEW cocktail of lifesaving drugs could save thousands of cancer sufferers. Experts at a major American health conference revealed the breakthrough in the treatment of head and neck cancer yesterday. They hope the combination of medicines will allow patients with the disease to talk without the use of a voice machine. It could also help people with one of the most devastating forms of cancer to eat and drink normally. In a study of 500 patients, the drug cocktail doubled the survival of patients beyond an average of three years. Most cancer patients on the treatment were still alive after nearly six years.

6/6/2006 Hartford, CT Hilary Waldman Hartford Courant (courant.com) A new cervical cancer vaccine headed for FDA approval this month could also put a dent in new cases of oral cancer - one of the deadliest cancers in the United States. At least one-quarter of oral cancer cases may be linked to human papillomavirus, the same sexually transmitted bug that causes cervical cancer. "In 10 to 15 years, we're going to find many fewer head and neck cancers," said Brian Hill, founder and executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation. Researchers started looking for new possible causes of oral cancer when tobacco use dropped precipitously in the United States but the incidence of oral cancer did not. About 30,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer in the United States this year, and only half of them will be alive in five years. The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that for cancer of the cervix, brain, liver, testicles, kidney or skin and for Hodgkins disease, a type of blood cancer. Six years ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine looked at 253 patients with head and neck tumors and found HPV-16 - the tumor-causing strain of the virus - in 25 percent of those patients. HPV-positive tumors are most likely to occur in the throat and tonsils and appear to be more responsive to treatment than tumors that are not associated with the virus. Although the presence of HPV in head and neck tumors has not yet [...]