PET scan – Oral Cancer News

Doctors couldn’t operate on my tumour, but this robot did — and it may have saved my life

Source: www.cbc.ca Author: Glenn Deir This is a First Person column by author Glenn Deir, who lives in St. John's, Newfoundland. Glenn Deir has special thanks for the robot who operated on his tonsil cancer. Long before I had cancer, and long before I lived in Japan, the rock band Styx released a synthesizer-drenched song with the hook "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto." Forty years later I, too, found myself thanking a robot. Its name is da Vinci. Da Vinci resembles a giant spider with four arms, and my journey to lying beneath those arms began with a niggling problem: I was having discomfort swallowing. Even sipping water sometimes stung. A flexible scope up my nose and down my throat revealed an apparent ulcer on my tonsil, the right tonsil, my one remaining tonsil. But given my history, my doctor couldn't ignore it. Ah, my history. Sixteen years ago, I contracted cancer in the left tonsil thanks to the human papillomavirus. That's the same virus that causes cervical cancer. Most folks shed the HPV virus with no harm done, but I had crappy luck. The subsequent radiation had me retching into a toilet for weeks. I turned into an advocate for the HPV vaccine. The da Vinci robot operates on Glenn Deir. (Glenn Deir) "Sex gave me cancer," I used to say. "You don't want your little boy to grow up and go through what I went through." What I wanted to ask Dr. Boyd Lee was, "So, what's [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-08-29T12:24:57-07:00August, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Head-and-neck surgeons buoyant about new, just-right robot

Source: newsroom.uw.edu Author: Brian Donohue You know how great it feels when someone makes a pie or cake just for you? University of Washington Medicine head and neck surgeons have been feeling that kind of love lately, and on Feb. 5 they shared the first slice, so to speak, with patient Steven Higley. Surgical assistants work near patient Steven Higley on Feb. 5. Lead surgeon Jeff Houlton is obscured by the robotics. The cake in this story is actually a da Vinci robotic-assist system built especially for head and neck procedures. It is easier to maneuver than the robotic device they’ve used for the past decade, which was designed for operations to the chest and abdomen. Higley underwent surgery to have a cancerous tonsil and part of his throat removed. Sitting at a console a few feet from the patient, Dr. Jeff Houlton manipulated the miniature surgical tools emanating from the robot’s single port, positioned just outside Higley’s open mouth. It was UW Medicine’s first trans-oral surgery with the new tool. “If you think about laparoscopic surgery in the belly area, robotics provides the advantage of multiple mechanical arms approaching from different angles,” Houlton said. “But it’s a challenge to have three robotic arms that all need to go through a patient’s mouth. With this machine, the three arms are designed to come through one garden hose-like entry port and then articulate out from there. “Pretty interesting, though, that in the past 10 years we built a nationally [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-02-12T18:43:12-07:00February, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

To see or not to see

Source: http://www.rdhmag.com/ Author: JoAnn R. Gurenlian From the National Journal fro Dental Hygiene Professionals: Allow me to relay the experience of a patient who has been through trying times lately. The patient is a middle-age female who noticed a small, firm swelling in the right submandibular region. She had never experienced this type of problem before, but since she had an upcoming visit with her family physician, she thought she would mention it. Her family provider told her it appeared to be a swollen lymph node and recommended she schedule an appointment with her dentist in the event that she had an oral infection. Being conscientious about health issues, this patient did have an examination with her dentist. He advised her that it was a swollen lymph node, but that there were no apparent oral health infections. He reviewed causes of swollen lymph nodes and felt that since she was asymptomatic; the node simply represented residual effects from a cold or allergy condition. Over the course of the next year, this patient presented on several occasions to both her family physician and dentist with concerns that the lymph node was getting larger. Both health care providers told her to “forget about it,” or “it was nothing.” She felt uncertain about both individuals at this point, but since they seemed to be in agreement that her condition “was nothing,” she heeded their advice. After several more months and with ever growing concern, the patient presented to her dentist again for further [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-02-19T11:00:56-07:00February, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Molecular imaging allows individualized ‘dose painting’ for head and neck cancers

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: public release According to research revealed at Society of Nuclear Medecine's 57th Annual Meeting, a multi-tracer molecular imaging technique using positron emission tomography (PET) provides detailed information about the physiological processes of cancerous tumors—and could one day help radiation oncologists treat head and neck cancers with precision external-beam radiation therapy and improve the outcomes of therapy. "The research that we are conducting with Philips is extending the use of molecular imaging for radiotherapy planning, moving closer to more personalized treatment of hard-to-treat cancers based on the biology of each individual patient's tumor," said Kristi Hendrickson, Ph.D., lead author of the study and medical physicist at the University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, Wash. "By modeling the data acquired from PET scans, we can potentially reduce damage to surrounding healthy tissue, as well as provide the ability to do 'dose painting,' delivering a highly customized form of radiation therapy for each patient." Cancers of the head and neck are notoriously difficult to treat, not only because of their proximity to sensitive anatomical structures, but also because of their tendency to recur. Researchers are working to find the best way to image these tumors in order to provide the most effective treatment. Several forms of radiation therapy are currently available. An approach called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is a sophisticated technique which is used to maximize dose delivery to tumors while sparing adjacent normal tissues such as the salivary glands. This therapy uses an external beam of radiation [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-06-07T15:05:46-07:00June, 2010|Oral Cancer News|