5/10/2007 web-based article Salynn Boyles WebMD.com Oral Sex Is Major Risk Factor HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, is also linked to throat cancer, and oral sex is a major risk factor for both men and women, new research shows. Having multiple oral sex partners topped the list of practices associated with an increased risk of developing oropharyngeal cancer, according to the study published in the May 10 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. People in the study who reported having a history of six or more oral sex partners were three times as likely to develop the cancer as people who reported that they had never had oral sex. In looking at patients with tumors that were positive for a particular strain of HPV already well-linked to cervical cancer, six or more oral sex partners increased risk for throat cancer by eightfold. And those who showed evidence of a prior oral infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) were 32 times more likely to develop the cancer. Oral sex seemed to be the main mode of transmission for oral HPV, although the researchers note that transmission from mouth to mouth contact couldn't be excluded. The new study shows that oral HPV infection is linked to head and neck cancer regardless of two other known risk factors: heavy tobacco and alcohol use. But longtime HPV researcher Maura L. Gillison, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says the findings should not be seen as cause for undue alarm. [...]

5/9/2007 Hong Kong staff msnbc.com Scientists in Hong Kong and Australia will soon test an experimental treatment for nose and throat cancer — which “trains” the patient’s own white blood cells to fight the disease. The trial will begin over the next three months and blood samples will be collected from 30 nasopharyngeal (nose) cancer patients in Hong Kong, said lead researcher Daniel Chua, associate professor of clinical oncology at the University of Hong Kong. These will be flown to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, where scientists will isolate and “train” a certain class of white blood cells, or T-cells, to fight the disease. The battle-ready T-cells will then be cultured and the whole army of cells will be re-injected back into the cancer patients. Some classes of T-cells have “memory.” Once these T-cells have been exposed to certain invaders and fought them off, they should hopefully launch the same response when they are re-introduced back into the patient’s body. “(We expect) the T-cells (to) initiate a very aggressive inflammatory reaction and during the process, not only will the T-cells attack the cancer cells, but other immune cells in the body will be called in to eradicate the cancer cells,” Chua told Reuters this week. Nasopharyngeal cancer, most prevalent in south China, kills one in every three victims and is thought to be linked to diets rich in preserved foods, like salted fish. Its link to the common Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), from the herpes family of viruses, is well [...]

5/9/2007 web-based article Stina Syrjänen, D.D.S., Ph.D. New England Journal of Medicine Volume 356:1993-1995 Each year, almost 650,000 patients worldwide receive the diagnosis of head and neck cancer and some 350,000 die from this disease.1 Nearly 90% of these cancers are squamous-cell carcinomas. The two main causative factors in approximately 80% of oral, oropharyngeal, and laryngeal carcinomas are smoking and alcohol use. Consumption of vegetables and fruit may modulate the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and alcohol, whereas low body-mass index increases the risk of oral cancer.2 The idea that human papillomavirus (HPV) plays a role in these cancers has been under investigation for at least 20 years. It is widely accepted that HPV causes cervical cancer.3 HPV has also been associated with several other types of squamous-cell carcinoma and their precursors at different sites — skin, vulva, vagina, penis, esophagus, conjunctiva, paranasal sinuses, and bronchus — but the role of HPV in the pathogenesis of the lesions is less clear than it is in cervical cancer.4 The similarity of the morphologic features of genital and oral HPV-associated lesions was one of the early findings that raised the possibility that HPV might be involved in oral and laryngeal squamous-cell carcinomas.5,6 Until recently, however, the role of HPV in the pathogenesis of head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma has been uncertain, mainly because detection of HPV DNA has been highly variable, with rates ranging from 0 to 100%.4 New data from case–control studies suggest that HPV is an independent risk factor for oral [...]

5/9/2007 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK staff Scotsman.com A new drug treatment doctors say could help save the lives of head and neck cancer patients has been given the go-ahead. Taxotere, which is used to treat sufferers of the aggressive cancer, has been recommended for use by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC). Trials found that patients taking the drug along with their regular treatment had a 30 per cent lower risk of mortality than those receiving the standard treatment alone. Dr Elizabeth Junor, consultant clinical oncologist at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital, said: "Compared with some other tumours, there are fewer treatment options for head and neck cancer. "This SMC recommendation will mean that more patients can now get this new treatment combination. "We hope it will result in many more lives being saved across Scotland." Around 760 people in the UK are diagnosed with head and neck cancer each year, which can affect the mouth, tongue and throat.

5/8/2007 Kansas City, MO Mike Hendricks KansasCity.com Fighting the disease is only half the battle, Mary Casey says. That still leaves the insurance company. At least that’s how it seems to the 57-year-old Brookside woman, a part-time admissions officer at St. Teresa’s Academy. It’s bad enough Casey had the misfortune of getting cancer. Now she finds herself on the wrong end of someone’s cost-benefit analysis. “I was stunned,” she told me. “I turned to my husband and said, ‘Now what?’ ” What floored Casey was that her oncologist prescribed one of the few drugs that work on her rare form of cancer. Yet her insurance company refuses to pay for the expensive new medicine, despite studies showing the drug’s effectiveness. “You can work all your life,” Casey says, “always pay your premiums, and then be blindsided by denial of coverage when the crisis hits.” There is no news in that. Yet if we are ever to change the system, stories such as Casey’s need telling. They remind us that all too often life or death comes down to dollars and cents. In this case, pills that cost about $3,600 for a month’s supply. Casey was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in early 2005. To excise the malignant tissue, a surgeon at the KU Cancer Center removed the roof of her mouth and replaced it with a synthetic one. He prescribed a regimen of radiation treatments but warned that the cancer was likely to return somewhere else in the body. It [...]

5/8/2007 Palm Beach, FL Elisa Cramer PalmBeachPost.com After a 42-year-old African-American seamstress refused to give up her bus seat in 1955 to a white man, the nation responded to racism in Montgomery, Ala., in a way it had not nine months before, when a 15-year-old girl was arrested for doing the same thing. Both women were bold. Both were courageous. Both were, as Rosa Parks described herself, "only tired ... of giving in." Neither deserved the arrest, but only one became the face of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It was not Claudette Colvin, a pregnant, unmarried teenager. To make Florida's lawmakers care about saving women from cervical cancer, a 58-year-old married father from Tampa - not sexually active teenagers - must become the face of the virus that leads to 3,700 deaths each year. David Hastings is fighting throat cancer that researchers say was caused by the same sexually transmitted virus that causes most cervical cancers. "All of my adult life," Mr. Hastings said to members of the House Schools and Learning Council last month, "I was a nonsmoker. I was a casual drinker. I was an exercise nut, a health nut." Last spring, Mr. Hastings noticed two lumps in his neck while shaving. After five doctors and several scans, an ear, nose and throat specialist told him he had Stage 4 cancer. As Mr. Hastings pointed out, "There is no Stage 5." Mr. Hastings fainted at the doctor's recommendation: "a radical neck dissection" to his collarbone to remove 26 [...]

5/8/2007 Miami, FL Carolynn Susman MiamiHerald.com Peter Billias says he is dying of oral cancer, the kind that eats away the insides of your mouth, and the kind that may have been preventable. Or at least treatable, giving him a chance at survival, if it had been diagnosed earlier. At 50, he recognizes the heavy smoking and drinking he has done all his life are undoubtedly responsible. So, even though his prognosis isn't good, the Lake Worth man gave up the cigarettes and booze and has been clean and sober, he says, for five of the eight months since his diagnosis. He didn't call to complain or rail about his fate. He called to get the word out about making sure that lumps and bumps that aren't right in your mouth get the proper attention. That may prevent others from facing his fate. ''If you see anything in your mouth, and it doesn't go away, something is wrong. See an ear, nose and throat doctor. Insist on getting it biopsied,'' he says. ``Or just make sure you request an oral cancer check when you see your dentist. ``It's a horrifying disease. [Treatment can mean] they cut part of your tongue out. And it's hitting more and more people that don't drink or smoke.'' According to www.oralcancerfoundation.org: ``At least 34,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal [throat] cancer this year. It will cause over 8,000 deaths, killing roughly one person per hour, 24 hours per day. Of those 34,000 [...]

5/3/2007 Salt Lake City, UT press release PRNewswire (www.prnewswire.com) BSD Medical Corp. (Amex: BSM) today announced that it has concluded an exhibition at the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) annual conference held in Chicago, Illinois. The ABS Annual conference provides a forum for reporting developments in brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is an interstitial form of radiation, administered by placing radioactive material in the cancer. Head and neck cancers are an important application for brachytherapy, and they were one of the focuses of the meeting. BSD Medical produces systems that are designed to boost the effectiveness of brachytherapy for certain tumors by providing companion interstitial hyperthermia therapy. BSD Medical representatives used the conference to emphasize a study conducted by Drs. Riccardo Valdagni and Maurizio Amichelli at the Oncology Center of Ospedale Santa Chiara, Trento, Italy, comparing the results for head and neck cancer patients who were treated with radiation alone to those who received hyperthermia therapy plus radiation. The patients involved had inoperable Stage IV head and neck cancer with metastatic lymph nodes. The study concluded that hyperthermia added to radiation improved complete response (tumor disappearance) from 41% to 83%, local relapse-free survival from 24% to 68% and overall survival at 5 years from 0% to 53%, as compared to radiation treatments alone. The study, published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics (see Vol. 28, pp. 163-169), was halted at 41 patients because, due to the strongly favorable results from the addition of hyperthermia therapy to radiation, it was not considered [...]

5/2/2007 Dallas, TX staff TopCancerNews.com Researchers have found a link between intake of fruits and vegetables and decreased risk of developing head and neck cancer. The study results were presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). The study included more than 490,000 individuals aged 50 or older. Over a five year period, 787 participants developed head and neck cancer. Individuals with higher intake of fruits and veggies were less likely to develop head and neck cancers. Overall, vegetables appeared to offer more protection than fruit. Plant groups that were linked with a reduced risk included string beans, peas and dried beans. Apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, pears and strawberries were the important fruits. We all know that fruits and vegetables are good for us. This is just one more study to prove that eating a diet with fruits and veggies can help us to prevent cancer.

5/2/2007 South Korea Sang Yoon Kim et al Journal of Nuclear Medicine Vol. 48 No. 5 752-757 High tumor uptake of 18F-FDG is associated with an unfavorable outcome in cancer patients. We evaluated pretreatment 18F-FDG uptake as guidance for the primary treatment modality in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the oropharynx. Methods: Fifty-two consecutive patients with newly diagnosed resectable SCC of the oropharynx underwent 18F-FDG PET before treatment. Primary treatment modalities consisted of surgical resection plus radiotherapy (RT) (surgery group, n = 31) or radical RT plus chemotherapy (RT group, n = 21). The sex, age, tumor stage, histologic grade, TNM classification, treatment strategy, and maximum standardized uptake value (SUV) categories were analyzed for association with local control (LC) and disease-free survival (DFS). The median follow-up of the surviving patients was 36 mo. Results: The median SUV was significantly higher in the 11 patients who failed treatment than that in the remaining controlled patients (8.0 vs. 5.4; P = 0.021). Patients having tumors with a high SUV > 6.0 had poorer LC and DFS (P < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, the SUV remained an independent determinant of LC and DFS (P < 0.05). Patients with a SUV > 6.0 in the surgery group had a higher 3-y DFS than that in the RT group (78% vs. 33%; P = 0.043). Conclusion: Pretreatment tumor 18F-FDG uptake represents an independent prognostic factor in patients with oropharyngeal SCC. Patients with high 18F-FDG uptake may be better treated by surgery followed by [...]