Trying to improve oral cancer treatment
Source: abclocal.go.com Author: staff It's a journey that can begin in the mirror or at the dentist's office. A small lesion in the mouth or throat can turn out to be oral cancer. Notoriously known to be unpredictable, these cancers are hard to treat, but some young doctors at the New York University's School of Dentistry are working to change that. Oral cancers take one American life every hour and it's because the unpredictability is a challenge. One person's cancer might be slow growing and another's wildly aggressive. It is impossible to tell which it is. The NYU researchers are trying to decipher their instruction codes, their genomics. If doctors know which way the cancer is going, it can be stopped. Halima Mohammed always carries water she constantly needs to drink. She is also a big consumer of fruits and vegetables. The reason: for nine years she has been fighting an oral cancer. "I can't have solid food so I get my nutrition from juices and most of these foods, especially the cabbage and the broccoli, are cancer fighting foods," she said. The cancer has had a huge impact on her life. She's already lost part of her tongue. "It is from my research one of the most painful type of cancers that you can have and I'm not diminishing cancer and the types of cancer, there is a constant pain, constant pain," said Mohammed. "It makes masticating difficult, swallowing difficult. You cannot have your favorite food anymore." But, Mohammed [...]