HHC study supports web-based care plans for head, neck cancer patients

Source: www.hartfordbusiness.com Author: John Stearns A joint study by the Hartford HealthCare (HHC) Cancer Institute and the Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center has demonstrated benefits of a web-based care plan for patients with head and neck cancer as a tool to better cope with side effects of treatment. A web-based tool to help patients with head and neck cancer better deal with effects of their cancer treatment has proved beneficial to patients and doctors, according to a HHC doctor involved in developing the tool and studying its effectiveness. "The compelling reason to do this work is because head and neck cancer has changed," said Dr. Andrew Salner, medical director of the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute at Hartford Hospital, HHC's lead doctor on the joint study with MSK. Head and neck cancer, once mostly associated with heavy drinkers and smokers who had other chronic diseases, is showing up more in younger and healthier patients, he said. That's because of the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV), now the leading cause of the cancers that often target the tonsils and back of the tongue. HPV is the most commonly sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. HPV is equally divided among males and females, the latter who've been getting vaccinated against HPV to prevent cervical cancer, but oral cancers are happening more prevalently and are appearing in males and females, Salner said. As such, boys and girls are now recommended for the vaccine before they become sexually active to hopefully prevent future disease, [...]

2018-02-28T14:51:59-07:00February, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Eight updates in oral head and neck cancer

Source: www.healio.com Author: staff Oral Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week — led by the Head and Neck Cancer Alliances and supported by the American Academy of Otolaryngology — raises awareness and promotes cancer screenings throughout the United States. Approximately 110,000 people are diagnosed with oral head and neck cancers — which include cancers of the tongue, throat, voice box, nasal cavity, sinuses, lips, thyroid and salivary glands —each year in the United States. “The best chance of effectively treating these cancers is early on in the disease, and that’s why identification of tumors in their earliest stage improves a patient’s likelihood of survival and the patient’s ability to speak and swallow normally after treatment,” Ilya Likhterov, MD, assistant professor of otolaryngology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a press release from Mount Sinai. “While oral cancer is most commonly linked to long-time smokers and drinkers, younger patients can be affected even if they don’t have obvious risk factors. It is very important to have your mouth examined and pay attention to symptoms such as pain, bleeding, trouble swallowing, or if you notice any wound or ulcer in the mouth that is not healing quickly.” In conjunction with Oral Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week, HemOnc Today presents eight updates in oral head and neck cancer. A combination of buparlisib (BKM120, Novartis) and paclitaxel may serve as an effective second-line therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Read more. [...]

B.C. detection test being used to catch oral cancer in early stages

Source: www.cbc.ca Author: staff Doctor says oral cancer is among the deadlier diseases yet rarely talked about. The Canadian Cancer Society estimates 4,400 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer this year. The deadly disease can often go undiagnosed because it is tough to screen for dormant symptoms. But now, researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC)  are developing a new test that will be able to detect oral cancer at a much earlier stage. Dr. Catherine Poh, an oral pathologist who also teaches dentistry at UBC, spoke with the Early Edition's Rick Cluff about the latest developments. What can you tell us about this new brushing test you're working on? We are a proposing a non-invasive approach to analyse genetic material collected from patients mouths using a simple brush. This can be done by a dentist or at a family doctor's office. This test would detect genetic change that happens in human genomes from the cells collected from the mouth. We have shown that it has prediction value for the risk for oral cancer development. How does your test compare to how oral cancer is detected right now? Right now the majority of oral cancer has been screened by dentists because many of the oral cancer [diagnosis] come with no pain or no symptoms. Through the dental regular checkups it can be detected early, otherwise patients come with a sore in their mouths that is essentially a delay in the diagnosis. What symptoms should people look out for? [...]

Link between coffee and dental care – lower your oral cancer risk

Source: blogjam.eu Author: Jenny L McCoy Studies have already shown that coffee may benefit dental care by reducing the risk of developing cavities. Now there’s even more good news for java junkies. Researchers have discovered that drinking a lot of coffee actually lowers your risk of mouth and throat cancer. According to the findings featured in WebMD, people who drink more than four servings of coffee daily have nearly a 40% lower chance of contracting mouth or throat cancer when compared to people who don’t drink coffee. For those who drank less than five cups of coffee daily, the level of protection fell to still significant 4% lower odds for contracting mouth and throat cancer for each cup of coffee consumed each day. Protection for oral and pharyngeal cancer was evident, but protection against cancer of the larynx was not. Coffee’s protective effect was shown to remain intact even for drinkers and smokers, despite the fact that tobacco and alcohol consumption are linked to head and neck cancers. Additionally, the protection effect didn’t demonstrate a boost by consuming fruits and vegetables, which are also known to protect against head and neck cancers. The researchers at the University of Milan reached these findings when they analyzed nine studies comparing 5,139 people with head and neck cancer to 9,028 people without cancer. So, which ingredient in coffee is responsible for reducing the risk of oral cancer? The study dismissed caffeine as a likely possibility since drinking tea, even in mass quantities, was [...]

Robotic surgery vs. radiation therapy: study will find which better for throat cancer

Source: http://www.windsorstar.com/ Author: Beatrice Fantoni, The Windsor Star In the first trial of its kind in the world, doctors in London, Ont., are comparing robotic surgery and radiation therapy to find out which method helps throat-cancer patients retain speech and swallowing functions - two very important functions that can have a serious effect on quality of life for cancer survivors. Dr. Anthony Nichols and Dr. David Palma of the London Health Sciences Centre are working with 68 test subjects who have cancer of the back of the throat (also known as oropharyngeal cancer) and measuring the swallowing functions of each patient one year after treatment. Because the cure rate for oropharyngeal cancer is pretty good, Nichols said, he and Palma want to focus on how to improve patients' post-treatment quality of life. In Canada, the standard way of treating oropharyngeal cancer is with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy. However, Nichols said, there can be some longterm side-effects with this treatment, such as dry mouth, hearing loss, taste changes and compromised swallowing function. "The side-effects are more than what we'd like," said Palma. "We want to improve the quality of life." Surgery using a robot is a newer treatment that could perhaps be more appropriate for some oropharyngeal cancer patients, Nichols said. London is currently the only site in Canada to offer what is known as transoral robotic surgery. The robot sounds promising, Palma said, and so it warrants more study. "We don't really know if the 'surgery first' approach [...]

Finally, a selfish reason to get boys vaccinated for HPV

Source: www.slate.com Author: Kent Sepkowitz A vaccine that prevents cancer is the dream of just about every patient, doctor, and public health official. Therefore, hopes were quite high five years ago, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes almost all cases of cervical cancer. But despite its clear efficacy, the vaccine has been something of a dud. According to a 2008 survey, only 34 percent of the target crowd, girls aged 13 to 17 years, had received it. The reasons for the slow uptake relate to generic vaccine issues (cost, pain, distrust) as well as a particular discomfort with this one, dubbed the "sex vaccine" by many conservatives, who object to it on the grounds that it somehow promotes licentious behavior (as if it were possible to make teenagers any hornier). However, a new study presented at last week's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists makes the vaccine look even more valuable. Though preliminary and still unpublished, these findings have the potential to finally shift the perception that HPV is a woman's problem and convince parents to get their boys vaccinated against the virus, too. The researchers make the most compelling case to date that HPV causes yet another malignancy—oropharyngeal cancer, a disease that affects men three times more often than women. (It's a subcategory of "oral" or "head and neck" cancer, which also predominantly affect men.) Their work appears to have [...]

Blue light tool could save lives of patients suffering from oral cancer

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress Author: Camille Bains, The Canadian Press A device that emits a blue light is giving patients undergoing surgery for oral cancer a fighting chance at survival and Canada is at the forefront of research that could have a global impact, researchers say. Doctors and scientists in nine Canadian cities began testing the tool last September as part of a five-year study on 400 patients who are suffering from cancer that has afflicted their tongue or other parts of the mouth. The hand-held fluorescence visualization tool allows surgeons to see cancer cells that can't be detected by conventional white light so they can remove the affected tissue and prevent the disease from recurring. Balvir Dhadda, 47, thought she'd been given a death sentence when she was diagnosed with the deadly disease four years ago after developing a sore underneath the left side of her tongue. "When I got diagnosed, I thought `That's it.'" But Dhadda credits the blue light device for saving her life. "This was the tool used on me, and the rest is history," Dhadda said Thursday. The tool ensured doctors removed only the tissue that was cancerous, rather than the usual practice of removing parts that might potentially be. "I think it was a major factor in the time it took me to recover afterwards," said Dhadda, of Surrey, B.C. Miriam Rosin, the principle investigator of the study, said the blue-light tool developed at the BC Cancer Agency had been used to detect lung, cervical and [...]

Virus passed during oral sex tops tobacco as throat cancer cause

Source: www.npr.org Author: Peggy Girshman If you're keeping score, here's even more evidence that HPV causes oral, head and neck cancers and that vaccines may be able to prevent it. Researchers studying the human papilloma virus say that in the United States HPV causes 64 percent of oropharynxl cancers. In the rest of the world, tobacco remains the leading cause of oral cancer, Dr. Maura Gillison of Ohio State University told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this past weekend. And the more oral sex someone has had — and the more partners they've had — the greater their risk of getting these cancers, which grow in the middle part of the throat. "An individual who has six or more lifetime partners — on whom they've performed oral sex – has an eightfold increase in risk compared to someone who has never performed oral sex," she said. The recent rise in oropharnx cancer is predominantly among young, white men, she noted, though she says no one has figured out why yet. About 37,000 people in the United States were diagnosed with oral cancer in 2010, according to the Oral Cancer Foundation. People with HPV-related throat cancer are more likely to survive their cancer than those who were heavy smokers or drinkers, the other big risk factors. The message may be more critical for teens according to Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. She has studied 600 adolescents over 10 [...]

2011-02-24T10:24:37-07:00February, 2011|Oral Cancer News|
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