Collaboration of major biomedical centers has shown convergence on a cellular process for head and neck cancers

Source: www.rxpgnews.com Author: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Powerful new technologies that zoom in on the connections between human genes and diseases have illuminated the landscape of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that drive the development of certain types of malignancies such as melanoma or ovarian cancer. Now several major biomedical centers have collaborated to shine a light on head and neck squamous cell cancer. Their large-scale analysis has revealed a surprising new set of mutations involved in this understudied disease. In back-to-back papers published online July 28 in Science, researchers from the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have confirmed genetic abnormalities previously suspected in head and neck cancer, including defects in the tumor suppressor gene known as p53. But the two teams also found mutations in the NOTCH family of genes, suggesting their role as regulators of an important stage in cell development may be impaired. "This adds a new dimension to head and neck cancer biology that was not on anyone's radar screen before," said Levi A. Garraway, a senior associate member of the Broad Institute, an assistant professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, and a senior author of one of the Science papers. "Head and neck cancer is complex and there are many mutations, but we can infer there is a convergence on a cellular process for which we previously did not have [...]

New Study on Tonsillar Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Source: SAGE Journals Online Objective. To analyze outcomes in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCCA) of the tonsil from the years 1998 to 2006. To assess factors that may affect disease-specific survival, such as patient characteristics and/or treatment modality. Study Design and Setting. National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. Subjects and Methods. The SEER database was used to perform a population-based cohort analysis for patients diagnosed with SCCA of the tonsil from 1998 to 2006. Disease-specific survival was correlated with sex, age, ethnicity, year of diagnosis, and treatment modality in a univariate Cox proportional hazards analysis and a multiple Cox-regression model with and without interaction effect. Results. Applied inclusion criteria resulted in 8378 patients. Of this patient cohort, 80% were male and 85% were white. The mean patient age at diagnosis was 58.1 years. On univariate and multivariate analyses, ethnicities other than white carried a significantly higher rate of disease-specific death (hazard ratio = 1.71, P

Cigarette Marketing Declined, but Smokeless Tobacco Marketing Doubled in Recent Years

Source: PR Newswire WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement from Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: The Federal Trade Commission on Friday reported that cigarette marketing expenditures in the United States declined from $12.5 billion in 2006 to $10.9 billion in 2007 and $9.9 billion in 2008. The FTC also reported that smokeless tobacco marketing increased from $354.1 million in 2006 to $411.3 million in 2007 and $547.9 million in 2008. When measured from 2005, smokeless tobacco marketing has more than doubled (from $250.8 million to $547.9 million). While it is a positive step that cigarette marketing has declined, the tobacco companies continue to spend huge sums to market their deadly and addictive products. Counting both cigarette and smokeless tobacco marketing, the tobacco companies spent $10.5 billion on marketing in 2008 – nearly $29 million each day and 52 percent more than they spent at the time of the 1998 settlement of state lawsuits against the industry, which was supposed to curtail tobacco marketing. Tobacco companies in 2008 spent 20 times more to market tobacco products than the states currently spend on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit (the states spent $517.9 million on such programs in fiscal year 2011). This huge mismatch between how much tobacco companies spend to encourage tobacco use and how much states spend to discourage it is a major contributing factor to the slowing of smoking declines in recent years. It is especially troubling [...]

The 3rd congress of the International Academy of Oral Oncology

The meeting on oral oncology was recently held in Singapore. Of the many papers presented there, a couple were of particular interest. The 3rd congress of the International Academy of Oral Oncology was held on July 14—17, 2011, in Singapore. Predicting long term survival in base of tongue cancers The treatment of squamous-cell carcinoma of the tongue-base has evolved from surgery and radiotherapy towards concomitant chemoradiation. Richard Nason (Manitoba, Canada) and colleagues presented results from a historical cohort of 290 patients with advanced cancer of the base of the tongue—followed prospectively—to assess 10-year treatment outcomes over the time that the pattern of treatment was changing. Multivariate models showed an independent effect of stage, sex, age, and initial treatment modality on overall survival. Treatment with radiotherapy and chemotherapy reduced the risk of death over 10 years by 89% (HR 0·11, 95%CI 0·1—0·2; p<0·0001) and surgery plus radiotherapy reduced the risk of death over 10 years by 87% (HR 0·13, 95%CI 0·1—0·2, p<0·0001). Lymph node metastasis gene expressions The assessment and treatment of regional lymph nodes in the neck of patients with squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck is the subject of much debate. Frank Leusink (Utrecht, Netherlands) and colleagues presented the validation study of a lymph-node-metastasis gene expression signature to discriminate metastasising from non-metastasising disease. Gene expression was analysed using a DNA microarray that included 696 previously reported predictive genes. The negative predictive value of the signature was assessed on the whole multicentre cohort (n=222), on clinically node negative (cN0) tumours [...]

Go to Top