risk – Oral Cancer News

Dry January might help reduce your risk of cancer

Source: www.iflscience.com Author: Holly Large, Editorial Assistant If one of your New Year’s resolutions happens to be staying sober, scientists at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have some good news for you: not drinking alcohol, or even just cutting back on the bevs, can reduce your risk of some cancers. There’s already evidence to suggest that alcohol consumption can increase the risk of some cancers; according to WHO estimates, more than 740,000 global cancer cases in 2020 were caused by alcohol use. But as report author Farhad Islami told STAT News, “[W]e wanted to know, what if people stop drinking?” Islami was part of a group of 15 scientists investigating the impact of reducing or ceasing alcohol intake on cancer risk, reviewing over 90 published studies over the course of four months. From this data, the team discovered that there was sufficient evidence to suggest that cutting back on alcohol could be linked to a reduced risk of oral and oesophageal cancers. There was also limited evidence of a reduction in risk for laryngeal, colorectal, and breast cancers. One of the key contributors to risk, the researchers found, was a toxin called acetaldehyde. Also known as ethanal, acetaldehyde is produced by the breakdown of alcohol in the liver. It plays a role in nasty hangovers and, as the studies suggested, increases someone’s risk of cancer. Drinking less alcohol reduces exposure to such a carcinogen and thus, the risks that come with it. In [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2024-01-03T07:40:47-07:00January, 2024|Oral Cancer News|

How often should you see a dentist?

Source: www.bbc.com Author: staff Margie Taylor says seeing a dentist once a year - or even once every two years - is enough for many patients. Some dentists argue this could make it harder for them to spot diseases such as mouth cancer. And they say it could see the wealthy paying for private dental care - while the poor have less access to a dentist. Ms Taylor met representatives of the British Dental Association (BDA) in Stirling on Wednesday afternoon to discuss their concerns. What is the Scottish government proposing? The Scottish government published its Oral Health Improvement Plan earlier this year, which says NHS dental services should focus on preventing oral health disease, meeting the needs of the ageing population, and reducing oral health inequalities between Scotland's rich and poor. The document says there is no clinical evidence that all patients need basic check-ups every six months - regardless of their oral health - as is currently the case. It quotes National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which state that "patients who have repeatedly demonstrated that they can maintain oral health and who are not considered to be at risk of or from oral disease may be extended over time up to an interval of 24 months." Risk assessment Under the new system outlined by the government plans, an Oral Health Risk Assessment (OHRA) would be introduced for every patient - with the frequency of check-ups determined by their overall score. This may mean that [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-06-07T07:53:50-07:00June, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Having a partner increases cancer survival rates: Australian study

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au Author: Sean Parnell People diagnosed with cancer are more likely to die if they do not have a partner, according to a new Australian study. Researchers from Cancer Council Queensland and Queensland University of Technology examined 176,050 cases of the 10 most common cancers in Queensland, diagnosed between 1996 and 2012. They found the chance of death was 26 per cent higher for men who did not have a partner compared to those who did, and 20 per cent higher for women who did not have a partner, across all cancers. “The reasons for higher survival in partnered patients still remains unclear, but are likely to include economic, psychosocial, environmental, and structural factors,” CCQ professor Jeff Dunn said yesterday. “Having a partner has been linked to a healthier lifestyle, greater financial resources and increased practical or social support while undergoing treatment. “Support from a partner can also influence treatment choices and increase social support to help manage the psychosocial effects of cancer.” The increased risk varied depending on the type of cancer. For men without a partner, it ranged from 2 per cent for lung cancer to 30 per cent for head and neck cancer, while for women without a partner it ranged from 2 per cent for kidney and lung cancer to 41 per cent for uterine cancer. “Health professionals managing cancer patients should be aware of the increased mortality risk among unpartnered patients, and tailor follow-up treatment accordingly,” Professor Dunn said. Of the 176,050 patients analysed [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-03-02T14:39:44-07:00March, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Caffeinated coffee lower oral cancer risk

Source: articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com Author: staff A new American Cancer Society study has found a strong inverse association between caffeinated coffee intake and oral/pharyngeal cancer mortality. The researchers revealed that people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day were at about half the risk of death of these often fatal cancers compared to those who only occasionally or who never drank coffee. But they said that more research is needed to elucidate the biologic mechanisms that could be at work. Previous epidemiologic studies have suggested that coffee intake is associated with reduced risk of oral/pharyngeal cancer. To explore the finding further, researchers examined associations of caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and tea intake with fatal oral/pharyngeal cancer in the Cancer Prevention Study II, a prospective U.S. cohort study begun in 1982 by the American Cancer Society. Among 968,432 men and women who were cancer-free at enrollment, 868 deaths due to oral/pharyngeal cancer occurred during 26 years of follow-up. The researchers found consuming more than four cups of caffeinated coffee per day was associated with a 49 percent lower risk of oral/pharyngeal cancer death relative to no/occasional coffee intake (RR 0.51, 95 percent confidence interval. A dose-related decline in relative risk was observed with each single cup per day consumed. The association was independent of sex, smoking status, or alcohol use. There was a suggestion of a similar link among those who drank more than two cups per day of decaffeinated coffee, although that finding was only marginally significant. No [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-12-12T19:38:15-07:00December, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

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 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-02-24T10:24:37-07:00February, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Uninsured have higher mortality from head and neck cancer than insured

Source: professional.cancerconsultants.com Author: staff Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have reported that patients with “Medicaid/uninsured and Medicare disability were at increased risk of death after the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) when compared with patients with private insurance.” The details of this study were published online on November 20, 2009 in Cancer.[1] Unfortunately, underinsured or uninsured patients are reportedly at risk for impaired access to care, delays in medical treatment, and in some cases, substandard medical care. A recent article in the journal Cancer suggests that patients who are uninsured or those who receive Medicaid benefits may be at greater risk for developing postoperative complications and dying after surgery for colorectal cancer. Researchers from the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and the Kentucky Cancer Registry have previously documented survival differences in patients with and without private health insurance. These findings were reported in the October 13, 2003 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The current study evaluated outcomes of 1,231 patients with head and neck cancer treated at the University of Pittsburgh. Patients were divided into those with Medicaid and uninsured status plus those with Medicare disability versus patients with private insurance. The hazard ratio for survival was 1.50 for patients defined as Medicaid/uninsured versus private insurance. The hazard ration for survival of Medicare disability patients was 1.69 compared with patients with private insurance. These increased rates of death were presented and then corrected for competing risk factors such as alcohol [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-11-28T07:28:18-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Patterns of alcohol and tobacco use affect head and neck cancer risk

Source: www.rtmagazine.com Author: staff Assuming that total exposure is the same, it is worse to smoke lightly for many years than to smoke heavily for a few years when it comes to the risk of head and neck cancer, new research shows. With alcohol use, however, the opposite is true. The results, which were published in the October 15th issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, also confirmed previous research showing that smoking was more strongly associated with laryngeal cancer and that alcohol consumption was more strongly associated with pharyngeal and oral cavity cancers. "Cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption are known risk factors for head and neck cancers, including cancers of the larynx, oral cavity, and pharynx," co-researcher Dr. Jay H. Lubin, of the National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland, told Reuters Health. "This paper presented a detailed quantitative evaluation of their effects, using data which were pooled from 15 case-control studies." The researchers modeled the excess odds ratio (EOR) to assess risk by total exposure (pack-years and drink-years), as well as the modification of risk by exposure rate (cigarettes/day and drinks/day). The smoking analysis included 1761 laryngeal, 2453 pharyngeal, and 1990 oral cavity cancer cases. For controls, 7963 were included for laryngeal and 10,114 for pharyngeal and for oral cavity cancer cases. The alcohol analysis included 2551 laryngeal, 3693 pharyngeal, and 3116 oral cavity cancer cases. For controls, 12,179 were included for laryngeal cancer and 15,589 for pharyngeal and oral cavity cancer cases. While smoking increased the risk of all [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-11-07T11:01:10-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Analysis of cellphone studies finds tumor risk

Source: www.latimes.com Author: Shari Roan Scientists looking at 23 studies involving almost 38,000 people initially see no connection. But a closer look at the highest-quality studies tells another story. The answer to the question of whether cellphones increase the risk of brain, head and neck tumors is truly a matter of whom you ask. An analysis published Tuesday of data from 23 epidemiological studies found no connection between cellphone use and the development of cancerous or benign tumors. But when eight of the studies that were conducted with the most scientific rigor were analyzed, cellphone users were shown to have a 10% to 30% increased risk of tumors compared with people who rarely or never used the phones. The risk was highest among those who had used cellphones for 10 years or more. "The other group of 15 studies were not as high-quality," said study coauthor Joel M. Moskowitz, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Family and Community Health. "They either found no association or a negative association or a protective effect -- which I don't think anyone would have predicted." The main message of the analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is that studies should be conducted so that findings are harder to refute, he said. In recent years, concerns have arisen that the radio-frequency energy emitted by cellphones may be high enough to cause tumors and other health problems. But the risks are hotly debated. "I went into this really dubious that anything was going [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-10-14T08:53:17-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Periodontitis associated with fourfold increased risk for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: staff Results of a study involving 473 participants showed that periodontitis was linked with the development of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Researchers conducted a hospital-based case-control study between June 1999 and November 2005. The study involved 266 patients with head and neck cancer treated at the Roswell Park Cancer Center’s department of dentistry and maxillofacial prosthetics, and 207 healthy participants. The researchers said that after adjusting for age at diagnosis, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, smoking status, alcohol use and number of missing teeth, each millimeter of alveolar bone loss was associated with a more than fourfold increased risk of SCCHN (OR=4.36; 95% CI, 3.16-6.01). When researchers evaluated disease at specific head and neck sites, they found strength of the association was higher in the oral cavity (OR=4.52; 95% CI, 3.03-6.75) compared with the oropharynx (OR=3.64; 95% CI, 2.54-5.22) and larynx (OR=2.72; 95% CI, 1.78-4.16). The researchers also said that there was a link between smoking and alveolar bone loss (P=.03), although the association between alveolar bone loss and SCCHN was weaker in current smokers (OR=2.85) compared with former smokers (OR=7.59) and never smokers (OR=5.96). Alcohol use was not found to be a significant risk factor. The researchers said the association between alveolar bone loss and SCCHN was similar in drinkers and nondrinkers. Source: Tezal M. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009;doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-09-0334.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-09-09T13:47:15-07:00September, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Career choice determines cancer risk, study finds

Source: www.yle.fi Author: staff A new study shows that cancer risk could depend on a person’s job description. A recently released Nordic study shows how different careers contribute to different forms and incident rates of cancer. Lifestyle factors that are linked to specific careers are often a major influence on who gets cancer and who does not. For example the study found that male bar workers had the highest incidents of developing cancer. Workers in the restaurant and bar industry were most likely to get cancer of the larynx, mouth, tongue, liver, lung, urinary tract and colon. It is more acceptable for workers to smoke and drink alcohol at a bar or restaurant than for example at a school, the study found. The study found that tobacco, asbestos and alcohol – especially in combination with each other – are the biggest cancer-causing factors. Male plumbers who have been exposed to asbestos have a 20 percent higher risk of developing some form of cancer than, for example, farmers. Lung cancer is six times more common in women who work as machine operator compared with their female farming counterparts. Incidents of breast cancer are highest among women who go through long years of education to reach career goals. For example, many female doctors and dentists wait longer than other groups before having children, which itself raises the risk of breast cancer. Not only workers at risk But it is not merely the employed and educated that see an increased risk. Unemployed men [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-06-03T04:54:13-07:00June, 2009|Oral Cancer News|