precancerous – Oral Cancer News

Health and geology experts work together in 250k project to improve early detection of oral cancer

Source: www.abdn.ac.uk Author: issued by The Communications Team, Directorate of External Relations, University of Aberdeen University of Aberdeen experts across the institutes of Dentistry, Medical Sciences and The School of Geosciences will work together to improve the ability to detect malignant changes in precancerous lesions which can develop into oral cancer in a £250k project. Oral cancer is a growing health problem that has seen little improvement in survival rates, mainly because of late diagnosis when the disease has progressed beyond a cure. One of the main challenges clinicians face is the lack of ways to reliably predict malignant changes in oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) which carry a higher risk of developing into cancer. The researchers will use techniques typically used in geological and material science to develop methods that can detect disease progression to help identify patients at early stages when the potential of a cure is more likely. Funded by Cancer Research UK, the multidisciplinary team from the University of Aberdeen, including Dr Rasha Abu-Eid of the Institute of Dentistry, Professor Valerie Speirs from the Institute of Medical Sciences, and Dr Dave Muirhead, Head of the School of Geosciences, will work with specialists around the world including Professor WM Tilakaratne and Dr TG Kallarakkal from the University of Malaya in Malaysia, Professor BSMS Siriwardena from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka and Professor J James from Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. Dr Rasha Abu-Eid explains: “In recent years we have seen a rise in oral cancer [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-03-02T21:47:34-07:00March, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Non-smokers with oral precancerous lesions at increased risk of cancer

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: press release Precancerous lesions in the mouths of non-smokers are more likely to progress to cancer than those in smokers, new research from the University of British Columbia has found. Although tobacco use is still one of the strongest risk factors associated with mouth cancers, UBC dentistry PhD candidate Leigha Rock found that oral precancerous lesions in non-smokers are more than twice as likely to progress to cancer. Furthermore, lesions in non-smokers progressed to cancer faster than smoking-associated lesions. The study was published this week in Oral Oncology. "This is the first published study where the main focus was to examine the difference in risk of progression to oral cancer between non-smokers and smokers with oral precancerous lesions," said Rock, lead author of the study. "While other studies have also reported a higher rate of transformation among non-smokers, we looked at multiple risk factors including genetic markers." Rock and colleagues looked at case history of 445 patients with oral epithelial dysplasia (OED), a type of precancerous oral lesion, enrolled in the B.C. Oral Cancer Prediction Longitudinal study. One-third of the patients were non-smokers. "As smoking rates decline, we are seeing an increase in the proportion of these types of lesions in non-smokers," said Rock. Among the scientists' findings were that lesions on the floor of the mouth in non-smokers were 38 times more likely to progress to cancer than in smokers. The study is also the first to report on quicker progression to cancer in non-smokers: both [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-03-07T11:30:22-07:00March, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Accuracy of Dentists in the Clinical Diagnosis of Oral Lesions

Source: Quintessence Publishing Objective: Dentists play an important role in the early diagnosis and treatment of oral lesions. However, treatment based solely on a clinical impression of the diagnosis, without histologic confirmation, can result in serious consequences, particularly when the lesion is precancerous or cancerous. The purpose of this study was to determine the overall accuracy of clinical diagnoses made by dentists as well as to compare the diagnostic ability of general practitioners with members of various dental specialties. Method and Materials: The biopsy reports of 976 specimens submitted to the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry, between January 2009 and January 2010 were reviewed. The presumptive clinical diagnosis made by the practitioner and the final histologic diagnosis on each specimen were recorded in addition to whether the submitting dentist was a general practitioner or a specialist. Results: Of the clinical diagnoses made by the submitting dentists, 43% were incorrect. General dentists misdiagnosed 45.9%, oral and maxillofacial surgeons 42.8%, endodontists 42.2%, and periodontists 41.2% of the time. The most commonly missed clinical diagnoses were hyperkeratosis (16%), focal inflammatory fibrous hyperplasia (10%), fibroma (8%), periapical granuloma (7%), and radicular cyst (6%). Cancerous lesions were misdiagnosed 5.6% of the time. Conclusions: The high rates of clinical misdiagnosis by dental practitioners indicate that all excised lesions should to be submitted for histologic diagnosis. (Quintessence Int 2011;42:575–577) This news story was resourced by the Oral Cancer Foundation, and vetted for appropriateness and accuracy.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-08-03T09:46:18-07:00August, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Oral Cancer Prevention International alleges that thousands of cancers are likely to result from J&J’s actions to protect its sales of Listerine

Source: www.benzinga.com Author: press release A lawsuit was filed against Johnson & Johnson and its Consumer Products Companies in the United States District Court, District of New Jersey on behalf of Oral Cancer Prevention International, Inc. (OCPI). OCPI is the developer of OralCDx®, a patented, testing protocol that can prevent oral cancer by identifying precancerous (dysplastic) cells in the mouth while they are still harmless. OralCDx® testing can be performed by dentists in addition to otolaryngologists (ENT's), family practitioners, dermatologists, and other physicians. The complaint alleges that in order to protect sales of its mouthwash Listerine, which has been linked to oral cancer, Johnson & Johnson and its Consumer Products Companies intentionally interfered with a February 10, 2010 sales agreement between OCPI and OraPharma, Inc., a specialty oral healthcare company. OraPharma had agreed to obtain the exclusive sales rights for OralCDx® to US dentists. According to Attorney James S. O'Brien, Jr. of Pryor Cashman LLP, who represents OCPI: “The effect of J&J's behavior, based on OraPharma's own projections, is that an estimated 7,300 cases of otherwise preventable oral cancer will occur in the United States over the term of the sales agreement.” According to the National Cancer Institute, over 30,000 Americans are diagnosed with oral cancer each year. It kills approximately as many Americans as melanoma, twice as many as cervical cancer, and is now rapidly rising among women, young people, and non-smokers. In fact there has been a nearly five-fold increase in oral cancer incidence in patients under age [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-07-25T07:59:00-07:00July, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Betel nut, oral cancer pilot study for Saipan, Guam now underway

Source: www.saipantribune.com Author: Moneth Deposa A betel nut and oral cancer pilot study will be conducted on Saipan and Guam beginning this year. The study hopes to gather baseline date to develop protocols for studying oral precancerous lesions and other health risks among betel nut users in Micronesia. University of Guam epidemiologist Dr. Yvette Paulino, co-leader in the pilot study, will work with Dr. Suzanne Murphy from the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii in the pilot study. In a presentation to members of the Commonwealth Cancer Association last week, Dr. Paulino disclosed that oral cancer is the sixth leading cancer worldwide, but ranks in the Top 3 cancers in countries where there are betel nut/areca nut chewers. Betel nut, she said, is apparently a misnomer. The nut itself is more accurately called “areca nut” and “betel” refers to the leaf that is sometimes used with the nut. “Betel quid” refers to the mixture of nut and leaf. The three-year pilot study aims to collect information on betel nut/areca nut use among 300 study participants in Guam and on Saipan and members of their families. In the course of the study, oral examinations and biopsies will be performed as needed, health risks will be measured, and associations of duration, frequency, and type of betel nut/areca nut use with oral pre-cancers and health risks will be studied. Dr. Paulino said that betel nut/areca nut is considered a human carcinogen. She revealed that betel nut chewing has been shown to be associated with [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-07-05T17:25:11-07:00July, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Involvement of potential pathways in malignant transformation from oral leukoplakia to oral squamous cell carcinoma revealed by proteomic analysis

Source: 7thspace.com Author: staff Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common forms of cancer associated with the presence of precancerous oral leukoplakia. Given the poor prognosis associated with oral leukoplakia, and the difficulties in distinguishing it with cancer lesion, there is an urgent need to elucidate the molecular determinants and key signal pathways underlying the malignant transformation of precancerous to cancerous tissue, and thus to identify novel diagnostic and therapeutic target. Results: We have utilized two dimensional electrophoresis followed by ESI-Q-TOF-LC-MS/MS to identify proteins differentially expressed in six pairs of oral leukoplakia tissues with dysplasia and oral squamous cancer tissues, each pair from the same patient. Approximately 85 differentially and constantly expressed proteins (>two-fold change, P>0.05) were identified, 52 up-regulated and 33 down-regulated. Gene ontological methods were employed to identify the biological processes that were over-represented in this carcinogenic stage. Potential biological networks were also constructed to reveal the link between those protein candidates. Among those proteins, three homologs of proteosome activator PA28 a,b and g were shown to have up-regulated mRNA levels in OSCC cells relative to oral keratinocytes. Conclusions: Amounts of differentially expressed proteins involved in the malignant transformation of oral leukoplakia. Their expression level, bioprocess, interactions networks could be analyzed by bioinformatics approach. All the three homologs of PA28 may be shown to play an important role in the malignant transformation. Our study is an example of a systems biology study, in which functional proteomics was constructed to help to elucidate mechanistic aspects [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-20T05:54:53-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Could bacteria be a throat-cancer culprit?

Source: www.forbes.com Author: Matthew Herper Could having the wrong bacteria in your throat give you cancer? That's the question raised by a new study by researchers at New York University Langone Medical Center. They found that people who have either chronic heartburn or a more serious, precancerous condition called Barrett's esophagus had completely different kinds of microbes living in their throats than those who were healthy. The research was published in the current issue of the medical journal Gastroenterology. "This is the type of thing that one hopes more people will do," says Jonathan Eisen, a professor at the UC-Davis Genome Center who was not involved in the work. He cautions that it is "way too early" to say that the bacteria are causing disease. "All they have right now is a correlation." The NYU researchers sequenced bacteria DNA samples from the throats of 12 healthy people, 12 with gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and 10 with Barrett's. In the healthy people, 82% of throat bacteria were Streptococcus. In those with esophageal disease, the bacteria in the throat were more like those in the stomach; only a quarter of them were Strep. Scientists divide bacteria into so-called "gram positive" varieties like Strep, which lack rigid cell walls and can be stained with dye, and "gram negative" ones that have cell walls and aren't dyeable. The throats of the people with GERD and Barrett's were full of gram negatives. This opens up several possibilities, says Zhiheng Pei, the paper's lead author. The [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-06T05:56:11-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Screening for oral precancer with noninvasive genetic cytology

Source: Cancer Prevention Research, 10.1158/1940-6207 Authors: Jantine F. Bremmer et al. Oral squamous cell carcinomas develop in precancerous fields consisting of genetically altered mucosal epithelial cells. These precancerous fields may appear as clinically visible lesions, in particular, oral leukoplakia, but the large majority remains clinically undetectable. The aim of this study was to assess the potential value of a noninvasive screening approach to detect precancerous fields. As a first step, we developed a suitable assay and investigated 25 leukoplakia patients and 20 noncancer control subjects. Exfoliated cells were removed by a brush from multiple small areas of the oral mucosa, including the leukoplakia. Brushed samples were investigated for allelic imbalance (AI) at chromosomes 3p, 9p, 11q, and 17p using microsatellite markers known to show frequent alterations in oral precancer. AI was absent in all (137) of the samples of the 20 control subjects, yielding a specificity of 100%. AI was detected in exfoliated cell samples of 40% (10 of 25) of the leukoplakia lesions studied. Genetic changes were also found outside the leukoplakia lesions. Most frequent was AI at 9p (9 of 10). The noninvasive assay was validated against the biopsy results of the leukoplakia lesions yielding an estimate of sensitivity of 78% (7 of 9) and a positive predictive value of 100% (7 of 7). Altogether, these results show the feasibility of a noninvasive genetic screening approach for the detection and monitoring of oral precancer. This assay could therefore contribute to the secondary prevention of oral squamous cell carcinoma. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-28T09:00:06-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Laser treatment for oral cancer

Source: abclocal.go.com Author: Leslie Toldo A quick zap from a painless laser could stop a deadly form of cancer. HealthFirst reporter Leslie Toldo tells us about this oral cancer breakthrough. Oral cancer has a high death rate compared to some other cancers, and the survival rate isn't improving. But this new treatment could stop it before it starts. They're often detected in a routine dental or doctor's exam -- red or white lesions called leukoplakia that can turn into serious, even deadly oral cancers. "I do happen to know people that have died of this kind of cancer, and so we watch it very closely," said oral cancer survivor Mike Hagerman. Hagerman, a former smoker, is a two-time oral cancer survivor. His leukoplakia is back. This time, he's part of a study testing a new photodynamic laser treatment designed to eliminate precancerous cells. Dr. Stuart Wong is a medical oncologist. "When the laser fires onto the lesion, it emits light at a very specific frequency that causes free oxygen radicals that destroy the lesion." Tested on the hand or used in the mouth on actual lesions, researchers say the laser doesn't hurt. it's a preventive measure that doctor say could save lives. "There is some emerging data that the better we can kill off these early precancerous lesions, that that might translate later down the road many, many years to a decreasing in the development of cancers and that's the goal," Wong noted. Oral cancer has a five-year survival rate [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-15T14:00:40-07:00October, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

New findings show cancer prevention effects of black raspberries, blueberries, olive leaves and green tea

Source: www.naturalnews.com Author: David Gutierrez Three studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Philadelphia have demonstrated the powerful cancer-fighting benefits of dark berries, green tea and olive leaves, and suggest that gels and beverages may some day be used to prevent against cancer and tumor growth. In the first study, researchers from Ohio State University discovered that a gel based on freeze-dried black raspberries helps prevent precancerous mouth tumors (lesions) from becoming malignant. "This gel appears to be a valid means of delivering anthocyanins and other cancer-preventing compounds directly to precancerous cells, since it slowed or reduced lesion progression in about two-thirds of study participants," said researcher Susan Mallery. According to the American Cancer Society, oral squamous cell carcinoma is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, causing 7,500 deaths each year in the United States. Because no chemopreventive agent or treatment method other than radical mouth surgery exists, even those who survive the cancer often emerge significantly disfigured. And even in many cases where tumors are fully removed, they still recur. "Oral cancer is a debilitating disease and there is a desperate need for early detection and management of precancerous lesions," said Mallery. Most mouth cancer begins as small, noncancerous lesions in the mouth that are difficult to detect. It was these lesions that were treated in the Ohio State University study. Researchers carried out the study on 20 participants who had identifiable precancerous mouth lesions [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-29T18:53:12-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|