PEG – Oral Cancer News

Living well with a feeding tube

Source: health.usnews.com Author: Lisa Esposito, Staff Writer Nearyly 450,000 Americans with swallowing or digestive problems manage tube feedings – also called home enteral nutrition – on their own. Some have temporary feeding tubes, while others leave the hospital with feeding tubes surgically placed for the foreseeable future. Veteran users or "tubies" accept long-term feeding tubes as the best or only way to nourish themselves. Many resume school, work and social lives that were once threatened by severe weight loss and malnutrition. For them, getting a feeding tube means getting their active lives back. Feeding Tube Benefits Feeding tubes can prevent weight loss, boost energy and bolster your immune system. They also offer important health benefits for people coping with the following health issues: Tube feeding for chronic swallowing challenges. For people with chronic health conditions that can cause swallowing difficulties, it helps keep them well-nourished. Neurologic conditions such as Parkinson's disease, stroke or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) can impair nerves, affecting swallowing ability. Tube feeding for oral and throat cancer. Inability to swallow food because of cancer of the mouth or throat is a major contributor to people receiving one, says Lisa Epp, a registered dietitian nutritionist with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Tube feeding for nutrition during recovery. A patient who has a short-term eating problem likely to eventually resolve, such as someone recovering from a surgery, brain injury or stroke, may benefit from having one. Tube feeding for gastric problems. Gastric problems in which [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-01-06T09:28:05-07:00January, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Supportive care for patients with head and neck cancer

Source: www.oncnursingnews.com Author: Melissa A. Grier, MSN, APRN, ACNS-BC Supporting a patient during cancer treatment is a challenge. From symptom management to psychosocial considerations, each patient’s needs vary and must be reevaluated frequently. This is especially true for patients with head and neck cancer. Head and neck cancers often result in serious quality of life issues. Surgical resection of the affected area can cause disfigurement that not only affects function (eating, drinking, speaking, etc) but also leads to self-image concerns and depression. Radiation therapy and chemotherapy may cause a variety of unpleasant adverse effects, including burns, xerostomia, dental caries, and mucositis. Below are some considerations to help guide nursing care for this patient population. CALL FOR REINFORCEMENTS National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines recommend early involvement of a dentist, a dietitian, and a speech therapist to help address pre- and posttreatment concerns and preserve quality of life for people with head and neck cancer. The benefits of multidisciplinary collaboration for these complex cases are many but may also result in confusion and information overload for your patient. As the healthcare team provides care, you can help explain the rationale for interventions and assist them with keeping track of recommendations. Additionally, you have a team of experts you can call on when specific issues present themselves during treatment. KEEP AN EYE OUT A lot goes on in the life of a patient with head and neck cancer, which means everyday activities like oral and skin care may fall a little lower on [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-05-08T08:16:44-07:00May, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

MIT and Harvard team gives voice to the voiceless

Source: Popular Science Author: Clay Dillow Call it a silent killer: some 6 percent of the U.S. population has some kind of voice disorder, most of those resulting from scarring of the vocal cords that can lead to diminishing or even total loss of the ability to speak. Giving voice to the voiceless, a team of Harvard and MIT researchers have developed a synthetic, injectable material that can be implanted into scarred vocal cords to restore their function. Rather than approaching the problem as a physiological one, they looked at the vocal cords as a mechanical issue. That is, they didn’t attack the scar tissue in the vocal cords but devised a fix for it. That fix came in the form of a material known as polyethylene glycol (PEG), which they chose because it is already FDA approved for other medical applications. PEG is flexible, both literally an in terms of its manipulability. By playing with the molecular structure of PEG, the researchers were able to dial in on a variation that mimicked the viscoelasticity of human vocal cords. Known as PEG30, it moves very, very similarly to natural vocal tissues (you can see this in the video below). Further, it can restore vibration to vocal cords that have stiffened due to scarring--which is the ultimate goal here. Their PEG30 gel, should it receive its own FDA approval, would be categorized as an injectable medical device rather than a drug, which could further speed it to market. If [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-07-15T14:40:30-07:00July, 2011|Oral Cancer News|