February 2015 – Page 2 – Oral Cancer News

HPV Related Cancers Increase in Men

Source: scientificamerican.comAuthor: Robin Lloyd A vaccine to protect against the most dangerous strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), which cause almost all cervical cancers, as well as many cases of other cancers and genital warts in both sexes, won the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nearly nine years ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends that all boys and girls aged 11 or 12 receive the shots. Vaccination campaigns, aimed largely at girls and women, have fallen short of expectations. By 2013 just over half of U.S. females aged 13 to 17 had received at least one dose of either the Gardasil or Cervarix vaccine. For males, that figure was a disappointing 35 percent. Now head and neck cancers associated with the virus are on the rise, leading some experts to recommend that a gender-neutral or male-centric approach might be more effective. HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. and worldwide, infecting just about all men and women at some point in their lives. Although most people clear the virus naturally, persistent infections with some strains can lead to cancer—usually cervical or oropharyngeal (affecting the back of the throat, tonsils and back of the tongue). HPV-associated cancers make up 3.3 percent of all cancer cases among women and 2 percent of all such cases among men annually in the latest available figures, yet the incidence of virally instigated oropharyngeal and anal cancers is increasing. Ohio State University medical oncologist and epidemiologist Maura [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-18T10:56:24-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Vaccine Linked to Less-Risky Behavior

Source: torontosun.comAuthor: Roxanne Nelson, Reuters Contrary to concerns that getting vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV) will lead young people to have more or riskier sex, a new study in England finds less risky behaviour among young women who got the HPV vaccine. "To my knowledge no studies have shown that HPV vaccination increases risky sexual behavior among young women and some of these studies have shown this (less risky behaviour) is also the case outside of the UK," said Dr. Laura Sadler of the University of Manchester, who led the study. It's possible that getting vaccinated led to better education about sexual health, Sadler and her colleagues write in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. Sadler and other experts say it's also possible that young women who are already less likely to take risks are the ones who are more likely to get vaccinated. HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections and causes the majority of cervical cancers. The virus has also been linked to anal and throat cancers. Two vaccines, Cervarix and Gardasil, are now available that protect against strains of HPV that cause most cervical cancers. Even though public health officials recommend that girls and young women be vaccinated against HPV, some parents have hesitated, fearing that it could encourage sexual activity or unsafe sex. For their study, Sadler's team reviewed the medical records of 363 women born in 1990 or later who attended an English clinic. Almost two-thirds of the young [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-18T10:46:04-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

New research shows possibility of cure for HPV positive throat cancer patients

Source: Eurek Alert! The Global Source for Science News Nice, France: Patients with cancer of the throat caused by the Human Papilloma virus (HPV+) have a better prognosis than those who are negative for the virus (HPV-). Now, for the first time, researchers have shown with convincing evidence that a group of patients with HPV+ cancer of the oropharynx (the part of the throat located behind the mouth, that makes up the region of the tonsils and the back part of the tongue where it connects to the swallowing part of the throat), can be cured in some cases even after disease has spread to distant organs in the body, like the lungs. Dr Sophie Huang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Canada, will tell the 5th International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) today (Friday) that her research has shown that, following intensive treatment, certain patients with HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) and distant metastases (tumours appearing in an organ not directly related to the primary cancer site) can survive for more than two years without further evidence of disease. Such cancers are usually considered to be incurable, and the goal of treatment is usually limited to symptom control. "Our research, the largest study to date to explore survival predictors for metastatic HPV+ and HPV- oropharyngeal cancer patients, has shown that cure is a realistic goal in those patients with oligometastasis - metastases involving five or fewer [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-13T08:37:16-07:00February, 2015|OCF In The News|

A Study Finds Smoking’s Toll On Your Body and Health Worse Than Previously Thought

Source: nytimes.comAuthor: Denise Grady However bad you thought smoking was, it’s even worse. A new study adds at least five diseases and 60,000 deaths a year to the toll taken by tobacco in the United States. Before the study, smoking was already blamed for nearly half a million deaths a year in this country from 21 diseases, including 12 types of cancer. The new findings are based on health data from nearly a million people who were followed for 10 years. In addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, the researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco. Even though people are already barraged with messages about the dangers of smoking, researchers say it is important to let the public know that there is yet more bad news. “The smoking epidemic is still ongoing, and there is a need to evaluate how smoking is hurting us as a society, to support clinicians and policy making in public health,” said Brian D. Carter, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society and the first author of an article about the study, which appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. “It’s not a done story.” In an editorial accompanying the article, Dr. Graham A. Colditz, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said the new findings showed [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-12T11:56:41-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

New Model Proposed for More Accurate Prediction of Treatment Outcomes for HPV Related Throat Cancer Patients

Source: news-medical.netAuthor: Researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network Researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre are proposing a new model to enable doctors to predict outcomes more accurately for patients with throat cancers specifically caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The findings are published online today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study investigators, Dr. Brian O'Sullivan, Lead, Head and Neck Cancer Site Group and Shao-Hui Huang, Research and Clinical Radiation Therapist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, have determined that a new model for classifying the most frequently seen throat cancers in our geographic location is needed. This classification incorporates individual patient factors including age and their smoking status with the traditional classification of the extent of disease, to offer a more personalized approach to predict outcomes and guide treatment. "Our study shows that the current model derived for smoking and alcohol related cancers is not suited for throat cancer caused by HPV, a burgeoning throat cancer population in the Western World, including Canada," says Huang. "This is the future of tumour staging. We need to consider the patient as a whole. Both individual factors, how extensive the disease is in the patient, and tumour biology should play a role in determining the best course of treatment." The purpose of a tumour staging system is to classify the disease into early, intermediate or advanced stage cancer. This classification helps determine treatment plans and can suggest what is likely to be the outcome. In recent years, it's been discovered that [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-11T11:01:45-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccination does not increase promiscuity among adolescents: It’s a vaccine against sexually transmitted cancer

Source: reason.com Author: Ronald Bailey On February 3, 2015, libertarian radio host Andrew Wilkow invited me to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination. We disagreed: Mr. Wilkow is considerably more worried about the risks than is warranted by the scientific evidence. During the segment, Mr. Wilkow stated that he did not plan to have his two-year old daughter vaccinated against the human papilloma virus (HPV). Infection with human papilloma virus is responsible for about 11,967 new cases of HPV-associated cervical cancer and for about 2,370 new cases of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers in women and nearly 9,356 new cases in men each year in the United States. During the radio segment, I mentioned that a male friend had recently died of HPV-associated head-and-neck cancer. I failed to mention that another male friend is being treated for that cancer now. Mr. Wilkow argued that since the vaccine immunizes against a sexually transmitted disease that he saw no reason to have his daughter vaccinated against it. The series of three HPV injections is recommended to start after age 9, so Mr. Wilkow has time to reconsider. Mr. Wilkow is, however, not alone in his opposition to HPV vaccination. A 2014 study in Clinical Pediatrics reported the results of a survey of parents' actions regarding HPV vaccination. The researchers found: A significantly higher proportion of parents of girls who were non-Hispanic white, lived in households with higher incomes, and had mothers with higher education levels, delayed and/or refused vaccination. Another of the early [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-11T08:16:00-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer

Source: www.npr.org Author: staff When Barbara Marder was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, she had part of her right lung removed, went through a round of chemotherapy and tried to move on with her life. "I had hoped that everything was fine — that I would not create difficulty for my children, that I would get to see my grandchildren grow up," says Marder, 73, of Arnold, Md. But a routine scan a year later found bad news: The cancer was back — this time in her other lung. "I was very disappointed," says Marder. She knew her prognosis was grim. "I decided at that point that ... I should think about the fact that perhaps this was going to advance rapidly at this point. And check and make sure: Is my will in order? What should I do so that my children aren't left with a mess to clean up in my house?" But Marder didn't give up. She started exploring her options, which eventually brought her to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, where doctors are testing a new type of cancer treatment known as immunotherapy. "Immunotherapy for cancer means developing treatments to harness your immune system and using your own immune system to fight the cancer," says Dr. Julie Brahmer, an associate professor of oncology and Marder's doctor. Scientists have been trying to do this for decades. After all, our immune systems can fight off all kinds of health threats. So, why not cancer? But nothing seemed [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-11T08:10:05-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

New model proposed for predicting outcomes more accurately in HPV-related throat cancer patients

Source: www.news-medical.net Author: staff Researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre are proposing a new model to enable doctors to predict outcomes more accurately for patients with throat cancers specifically caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The findings are published online today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study investigators, Dr. Brian O'Sullivan, Lead, Head and Neck Cancer Site Group and Shao-Hui Huang, Research and Clinical Radiation Therapist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, have determined that a new model for classifying the most frequently seen throat cancers in our geographic location is needed. This classification incorporates individual patient factors including age and their smoking status with the traditional classification of the extent of disease, to offer a more personalized approach to predict outcomes and guide treatment. "Our study shows that the current model derived for smoking and alcohol related cancers is not suited for throat cancer caused by HPV, a burgeoning throat cancer population in the Western World, including Canada," says Huang. "This is the future of tumour staging. We need to consider the patient as a whole. Both individual factors, how extensive the disease is in the patient, and tumour biology should play a role in determining the best course of treatment." The purpose of a tumour staging system is to classify the disease into early, intermediate or advanced stage cancer. This classification helps determine treatment plans and can suggest what is likely to be the outcome. In recent years, it's been discovered that throat cancer caused by HPV behaves [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-11T07:56:14-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Integrative and Comparative Genomic Analysis of HPV-Positive and HPV-Negative Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Source: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/Authors: Tanguy Y. Seiwert, Zhixiang Zuo, Michaela K. Keck, Arun Khattri, Chandra S. Pedamallu, Thomas Stricker, Christopher Brown, Trevor J. Pugh, Petar Stojanov, Juok Cho, Michael S. Lawrence, Gad Getz, Johannes Brägelmann, Rebecca DeBoer, Ralph R. Weichselbau, Alexander Langerman, Louis Portugal, Elizabeth Blair, Kerstin Stenson, Mark W. Lingen, Ezra E.W. Cohen, Everett E. Vokes, Kevin P. White, and Peter S. Hammerman Abstract Purpose: The genetic differences between human papilloma virus (HPV)–positive and –negative head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) remain largely unknown. To identify differential biology and novel therapeutic targets for both entities, we determined mutations and copy-number aberrations in a large cohort of locoregionally advanced HNSCC. Experimental Design: We performed massively parallel sequencing of 617 cancer-associated genes in 120 matched tumor/normal samples (42.5% HPV-positive). Mutations and copy-number aberrations were determined and results validated with a secondary method. Results: The overall mutational burden in HPV-negative and HPV-positive HNSCC was similar with an average of 15.2 versus 14.4 somatic exonic mutations in the targeted cancer-associated genes. HPV-negative tumors showed a mutational spectrum concordant with published lung squamous cell carcinoma analyses with enrichment for mutations in TP53, CDKN2A, MLL2, CUL3, NSD1, PIK3CA, and NOTCH genes. HPV-positive tumors showed unique mutations in DDX3X, FGFR2/3 and aberrations in PIK3CA, KRAS, MLL2/3, and NOTCH1 were enriched in HPV-positive tumors. Currently targetable genomic alterations were identified in FGFR1, DDR2, EGFR, FGFR2/3, EPHA2, and PIK3CA. EGFR, CCND1, and FGFR1 amplifications occurred in HPV-negative tumors, whereas 17.6% of HPV-positive tumors harbored mutations in fibroblast growth factor receptor [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-05T14:34:06-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

How green tea can kill cancer cells: compound destroys disease while leaving healthy cells unscathed

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk Author: Lizzie Parry A compound in green tea has been found to kill mouth cancer cells while leaving healthy cells undamaged. While it was known the drink could help fight the disease, scientists say they have now worked out why. The breakthrough involved identifying the process by which the substance attacks cancer cells. This, it is hoped, will lead to new treatments for oral cancer, as well as other forms of the disease. A compound found in green tea has been found to kill off oral cancer cells, while leaving healthy cells undamaged. Scientists at Penn State have now identified how the process targets the disease Scientists at Penn State University, in the US, explored the specific mechanism by which the green tea compound is able to target the diseased cells. Earlier studies have shown that epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a compound found in green tea, killed mouth cancer cells without harming normal cells. But researchers did not understand the reasons behind the substance's ability to kill the cancer cells. Scientists now believe EGCG may trigger a process in the mitochondria - the powerhouse of a cell that produces energy - that leads to cell death. Professor Joshua Lambert, a specialist in food science and co-director of Penn State's Center for Plant and Mushroom Foods for Health, said: 'EGCG is doing something to damage the mitochondria. 'That mitochondrial damage sets up a cycle causing more damage and it spirals out, until the cell undergoes programmed cell death. 'It looks [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-04T08:23:54-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|