Disparities in head and neck cancer patients

Source: www.eurekalert.com Author: staff A new analysis finds considerable disparities in survival related to race and socio-economic status among patients with head and neck cancer. Published in the November 15, 2008 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that earlier diagnosis and greater access to treatment could improve outcomes for these cancers among African Americans and the poor. A number of studies have examined disparities in cancer survival among different groups to help identify interventions to improve patient outcomes. To investigate factors that impact survival from head and neck cancer, Dr. Leonidas Koniaris and colleagues at the University of Miami School of Medicine reviewed all head and neck cancer cases in Florida between 1998 and 2002. By mining information from the Florida Cancer Data System and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration dataset, they were able to accumulate data on diagnoses, comorbid conditions, and procedures performed during every hospitalization or outpatient visit among 20,915 head and neck cancer patients during that time. The review found poorer outcomes were associated with race, poverty, age, gender, tumor site and stage, treatment type, and a history of smoking and alcohol consumption. Regarding race, the average survival time among Hispanics was 47 months, compared with 40 months among Caucasians and 21 months among African Americans. African American patients were diagnosed at a younger age and presented with more advanced disease compared with Caucasians. For all tumor stages, African American patients had a significantly shorter average survival [...]

Virus discoveries secure Nobel prize in medicine

Source: www.nature.com Author: Alison Abbott This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors three Europeans who discovered viruses that cause deadly diseases, and whose findings have led to major medical advances. Harald zur Hausen, former director of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, was honoured for his work on the human papilloma virus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer. A protective vaccine for this virus has now been developed and is in widespread use. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier share the other half of the prize for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), which causes AIDS. Zur Hausen was the only one of the three who was at home when the famous call from Stockholm came. Montagnier, now director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, was working in the Côte d'Ivoire. Barré-Sinoussi, who is at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, was in Cambodia. The Nobel committee had been unable to contact either before the time of the announcement. Search for the AIDS virus Barré-Sinoussi — who, accompanied only by her mobile phone, found herself overwhelmed by the event — becomes the 36th woman to win a Nobel prize of any kind, compared with a list of 745 male laureates. She worked with Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute, from the beginning of the hunt for the virus causing AIDS in the early 1980s. The pair identified the virus, which they originally called LAV (lymphadenopathy associated virus), in 1983. A bitter battle for credit [...]

New York Presbyterian Hospital showcases latest advances and techniques in head and neck surgery

Source: www.marketwatch.com Author: staff Head and neck surgery is a diverse regional subspecialty, whose central focus is treatment of oncologic disorders of the neck. "Neck dissection is relevant to treatment of such disorders as squamous cell cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract, tongue cancer, laryngeal cancer, thyroid cancer, salivary gland cancer, and skin cancers of the head/neck region, including melanoma," explained William I. Kuhel, MD, the Director of the Head and Neck Service, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Associate Professor of Clinical Otorhinolaryngology at Weill Cornell Medical School. "For many years, the radical neck dissection was the standard operation for removal of metastatic disease involving the lymph nodes in the neck, but that operation evolved into what are referred to as modified and selective neck dissections, which spare some of the important structures in the neck," said Dr. Kuhel. Salvatore M. Caruana, MD, the Director of the Division of Head and Neck Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, explained further. "The trend these days is to do smaller operations to get the same effect. Over the years it has become clear that certain areas of a radical neck dissection do not have to be included for diseases at specific levels. Our knowledge base has allowed us to make smaller operations to address the same problems." Greater experience has also allowed for more common use of adjuvant therapies, [...]

Sister honors her brother by supporting Oral Cancer Foundation

Source: OCF Press Release Author: John Pohl David Nasto was the kind of person many of us wish we could be. He was a surfer. A snowboarder. A kayaker. A bicycler. An artist. A world traveler. A free spirit. Not content to simply be a devoted fan of the Grateful Dead, he also designed their album covers. Simply put, David Nasto loved life, and he lived it on his own terms. David Nasto was also his sister Susan’s hero. So when David developed oral cancer in 2005, Susan decided to learn as much about the disease as she could. And when David passed away the following year, she decided to honor her brother do by doing what she could to help prevent others from suffering the way he suffered. “When David was diagnosed with oral cancer, I was shocked,” said Susan. “He was so athletic, so healthy, and he had never smoked a cigarette in his life. I didn’t think oral cancer struck people like him.” Susan tried to learn as much as she could about the disease, spending much of her free time doing online research. During that process she discovered the website of the Oral Cancer Foundation. “I learned a lot about oral cancer, but the most important thing I learned is the importance of early detection. So when David died, I wanted to find a way to raise money to help increase awareness of the need for everyone to get checked for oral cancer on a regular [...]

American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology selects recipient of first nursing award

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: staff The American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology has selected Peggy Wiederholt, R.N., as the inaugural winner of the ASTRO Nurse Excellence Award, which is awarded to a registered nurse who goes above and beyond the normal standards of nursing practice. Ms. Wiederholt was presented with her award, a $1,000 grant, at the nurses' welcome and orientation luncheon held Sunday, September 21, 2008, at 12:00 p.m. during ASTRO's 50th Annual Meeting in Boston. Ms. Wiederholt is the head and neck oncology nurse coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center in Madison, Wis., where she is responsible for bridging communication between patients and providers, assisting patient needs, coordinating care, managing chemoradiation-induced symptoms and side effects, and providing patient, family and staff education. She has worked in the University of Wisconsin System for over 25 years, the last five of which were in the Radiation Oncology Department. During her time as a radiation oncology nurse, Ms. Wiederholt co-founded "Heads Up," a head and neck cancer patient support group at the Carbone Cancer Center and now serves as the group's co-director. In January 2007 she served as a member of the steering committee for the first multidisciplinary head and neck cancer symposium sponsored by ASTRO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Head and Neck Society. Ms. Wiederholt has also co-authored a cancer patient handbook titled, "The Write Track, a Personal Health Tracker for Cancer Patients." For the past two years, [...]

Spit proteins could lead to oral cancer test

Source: www.canada.com Author: Maggie Fox A simple screen of proteins in human saliva was able to accurately detect a common type of oral cancer, a finding that may lead to a painless new diagnostic test, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The test can predict the mouth cancer in 93 percent of cases, a team at the University of California Los Angeles reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. It is among the first of a new set of spit-based diagnostic tests expected to arise from a protein map of human saliva developed by researchers at UCLA and other centers. The map, published in March, identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands. The latest findings focus on oral squamous cell carcinoma, which affects more than 300,000 people worldwide. More than 90 percent of cancers that start in the mouth are squamous cell cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. Researchers at UCLA's School of Dentistry collected saliva samples from 64 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma and compared them with samples from 64 healthy patients. They found that five protein biomarkers -- M2BP, MRP14, CD59, profilin and catalase -- predicted oral cancer 93 percent of the time. "We have demonstrated a new approach for cancer biomarker discovery using saliva proteomics," said Shen Hu, who led the research. The UCLA team is developing devices to detect these markers that could be studied in human trials. "I believe a test measuring these biomarkers will come to a point of regular [...]

Vitamin C may interfere with cancer treatment

Source: New York Times (nytimes.com) Author: Tara Parker-Pope Many people gobble big doses of vitamin C in hopes of boosting their immune system and warding off illness. But new research shows that in people with cancer, the vitamin may do more harm than good. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York studied the effects of vitamin C on cancer cells. As it turns out, the vitamin seems to protect not just healthy cells, but cancer cells, too. The findings were published today in the journal Cancer Research. “The use of vitamin C supplements could have the potential to reduce the ability of patients to respond to therapy,” said Dr. Mark Heaney, an associate attending physician at the cancer center. Dr. Heaney and his colleagues tested five different chemotherapy drugs on cancer cells in the laboratory. Some of the cells were first treated with vitamin C. In every case, including a test of the powerful new cancer drug Gleevec, chemotherapy did not work as well if cells had been exposed to vitamin C. The chemotherapy agents killed 30 to 70 percent fewer cancer cells when the cells were treated with the vitamin. A second set of experiments implanted cancer cells in mice. They found that the tumors grew more rapidly in mice that were given cancer cells pretreated with vitamin C. The researchers found that just like healthy cells, cancer cells also benefit from vitamin C. The vitamin appeared to repair a cancer cell’s damaged mitochondria, the energy center [...]

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