July 2017 – Page 2 – Oral Cancer News

An artistic representation of cancer

Source: www.vueweekly.com Author: Stephan Boissonneault Obstructed by Jude Griebel // Stephan Boissonneault One of the most terrifying phrases known to our current human existence is “you have cancer.” Those three words can break a person. “I would describe it as a terrible cyclone of information,” says head and neck cancer patient Kimberly Flowers. “You’re surrounded by all these medical teams, all these procedures and appointments, and you’re expected as [a] patient to make the best informed decisions while you’re in a state of emotional trauma. It’s just a whirlwind of confusion.” With their project and exhibition See Me, Hear Me, Heal Me, clinicians, researchers, patients, and artists aim to recreate that initial confusion and the universal experience of head and neck cancer with multiple works of art. “I thought art was the best way to express this because art presents an effective and visceral understanding to the experience,” head researcher of the project Dr. Minn Yoon says. Yoon, being an assistant professor with the School of Dentistry at the University of Alberta, initially started the project by interviewing patients with head and neck cancer. “My research has to do with the oral health of vulnerable populations, and patients with head and neck cancer fall into that category,” Yoon says. “I wanted to get a sense of what these people actually go through and how their lives change after learning they have head and neck cancer.” After an interview with a patient who had undergone surgery to reconstruct her [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-14T08:00:36-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

House Committee Looks to Dilute Tobacco Control Act

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Date: July 12, 2017 Author: Salynn Boyles The U.S. House Appropriations Committee made a move Wednesday to greatly weaken the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco products, including flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes, and health advocacy groups were quick to condemn it. The committee approved a rider to the agriculture funding bill that would exempt certain cigars from FDA's authority and weaken its regulatory oversight over e-cigarettes, little cigars, and hookah tobacco. Prior to the vote, the House committee defeated an amendment by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) to remove language from the bill that will effectively eliminate FDA's authority to review the health hazards of thousands of tobacco products. A second rider would exempt from FDA authority certain cigars, including many that are cheap, flavored and are most likely to appeal to children, said American Lung Association (ALA) President Harold Wimmer. "These dangerous riders were added to this bill for the benefit of the tobacco industry and come at a time when e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among kids," Wimmer said in a written press statement. The riders are similar to those passed by the House Appropriations Committee last year, but the language restricting FDA's authority under the Tobacco Control Act was dropped from the final FY2017 bill later in the appropriations process. New language in the FY2018 bill does require the FDA to develop standards for the flavors added to e-cigarettes. ALA spokesperson Erika Sward told MedPage Today that it is not clear if the [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-13T11:02:13-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Personalized cancer vaccines successful in first-stage human trials

Source: http://newatlas.com/cancer-personalized-vaccine-success-trial/50402/ Author: Rich Haridy Date: July 9, 2017 A cancer vaccine is one of the holy grails of modern medical research, but finding a way to stimulate the immune system to specifically target and kill cancer cells has proven to be a difficult task. Now two recent clinical trials that have produced encouraging results in patients with skin cancer are are providing hope for the development of personalized cancer vaccines tailored to individual patient's tumors. Both studies focus on neoantigens, which are mutated molecules found only on the surface of cancer cells. Neoantigens prove to be ideal targets for immunotherapy as they are not present on healthy cells. A vaccine's challenge is to train the body's immune cells, known as T cells, to hunt and kill only those specific tumor cells that hold the target neoantigens. In the first trial, at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, samples of tumors were taken from six patients with melanoma. The patients were identified as having a high risk for recurrence after first having their tumors removed by surgery. For each individual patient the researchers identified up to 20 neoantigens specific to a subject's tumor. Computer algorithms were then utilized to help the researchers select which specific neoantigens would best stimulate the body's T cells. Those neoantigens were then synthesized, mixed with an adjuvant to stimulate immune response, and injected into the individual patients. Four out of the six patients in this first trial displayed no recurrence of their cancer 25 months after vaccination. [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-10T09:33:39-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Biotech exec facing death urges: Get the vaccine that prevents his cancer

Source: www.philly.com Author: Michael D. Becker Like most people who pen a new book, Michael D. Becker is eager for publicity. But he has an unusual sense of urgency. A former oncology biotech CEO, Becker has neck cancer. He expects his 49th birthday in November to be his last, if he makes it. What also drives him to get his message out, however, is this: Children today can get a vaccine that prevents the kind of oropharyngeal cancer that is killing him. As he collides with his mortality, Becker wants to share his story and raise awareness about the vaccine, which protects against dangerous strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, the extremely common, sexually transmitted virus that caused his disease. His book, A Walk With Purpose: Memoir of a Bioentrepreneur (available on Amazon.com), was produced and self-published in a creative sprint between December, when his cancer recurred just a year after initial diagnosis and treatment, and April. He also has a blog, My Cancer Journey, and has been conducting media interviews. “I had a lot of motivation to write the book quickly,” he said wryly at his home in Yardley. In the final pages, he urges parents “to talk to their doctor about the HPV vaccine,” which “simply didn’t exist when I was a teenager, or it could have prevented my cancer.” The leading vaccine brand, Gardasil, was hailed as a breakthrough when it was introduced in 2006. It is approved to prevent cervical cancer and less common genital malignancies, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-06T09:33:47-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|