What accounts for racial differences in head/neck cancer?

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff Why are African-Americans more likely than Caucasians not only to be diagnosed with head and neck cancer, but also to die from the disease? While the answer isn't a simple one, differences in lifestyle, access to care, and tumor genetics may be partly to blame, according to a new study from Henry Ford Hospital. The study, which was presented September 14 at the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Foundation's annual meeting in San Francisco, also found that African-Americans are more likely to be past or current smokers, one of the primary risk factors for head and neck cancer. "We're really trying to understand why African-Americans with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma do so poorly," said lead author Maria Worsham, PhD, director of research in the department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at Henry Ford, in a news release. "Using a comprehensive set of risk factors that are known to have some bearing on the disease, we're able to gain a better understanding of what contributes to racial differences and work to help improve patient care." This year alone, it's estimated that 52,140 new cases of head and neck cancer will be diagnosed, and roughly 11,460 will die in 2011 from oral cavity and pharyngeal and laryngeal cancers, she and her team members noted. African-Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and have a worse five-year survival rate than Caucasians. [...]

2011-09-19T19:21:47-07:00September, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Students can’t commit to quitting

Source: www.gcsunade.com Author: Lindsay Peterson A Georgia College student steps outside, pauses and inhales, filling his lungs with acetone, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, butane, formaldehyde, lead and turpentine – just 8 of the more than 50 carcinogens found in the average cigarette. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the 46 million smokers in the U.S., college students are among the highest percentage of smokers. Almost 22 percent of adults ages 18-24 smoke, according to 2009 CDC data. Their professors are not far behind them in their smoking addiction. According to the CDC data, almost 22 percent of people ages 45-64 are smokers. In 2009, the CDC found that adults in the Southeast were among the most prevalent smokers in the United States. While there are no hard statistics for the percentage of students and staff that smoke at GC, it is not uncommon to see a familiar gathering of smokers sitting outside any of the dorms. Lauren Luker, junior mass communication major, started smoking in order to get a break at her job as a server. “You couldn’t have a break unless it was a smoke break,” Luker said. Now, eight years later, Luker is worried about the health of her lungs and is planning on quitting after several previous failed attempts. However, quitting such an addictive habit is not always easy, as Luker knows. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine. Fortunately for GC students and staff [...]

Morning smoking linked to higher risk of head and neck cancer

Source: www.nursingtimes.net Author: staff Smokers who light up first thing in the morning have a higher risk of developing head and neck cancer than those who wait that little bit longer for their first cigarette of the day, a study has suggested. A research team from the Penn State College of Medicine in America investigated whether nicotine dependence, as characterised by the time smokers take to have their first cigarette after waking, affects smokers’ risk of lung, head and neck cancers independent of cigarette smoking frequency and duration. They analysed 1,055 people with head and neck cancers and 795 who did not have cancer, all of whom were cigarette smokers. Individuals who smoked 31 minutes to an hour after waking were 1.42 times more likely to develop head and neck cancer than those who waited more than hour before having a nicotine fix. Those who waited less than half an hour to have their first cigarette of the day were 1.59 times as likely to develop head and neck cancer. According to Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society, the results of the study may help identify smokers who have an especially high risk of developing cancer and would therefore benefit from targeted smoking interventions. Dr Joshua Muscar, lead researcher, said: “These smokers have higher levels of nicotine and possibly other tobacco toxins in their body, and they may be more addicted than smokers who refrain from smoking for a half hour or more.”

Finally, a selfish reason to get boys vaccinated for HPV

Source: www.slate.com Author: Kent Sepkowitz A vaccine that prevents cancer is the dream of just about every patient, doctor, and public health official. Therefore, hopes were quite high five years ago, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes almost all cases of cervical cancer. But despite its clear efficacy, the vaccine has been something of a dud. According to a 2008 survey, only 34 percent of the target crowd, girls aged 13 to 17 years, had received it. The reasons for the slow uptake relate to generic vaccine issues (cost, pain, distrust) as well as a particular discomfort with this one, dubbed the "sex vaccine" by many conservatives, who object to it on the grounds that it somehow promotes licentious behavior (as if it were possible to make teenagers any hornier). However, a new study presented at last week's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists makes the vaccine look even more valuable. Though preliminary and still unpublished, these findings have the potential to finally shift the perception that HPV is a woman's problem and convince parents to get their boys vaccinated against the virus, too. The researchers make the most compelling case to date that HPV causes yet another malignancy—oropharyngeal cancer, a disease that affects men three times more often than women. (It's a subcategory of "oral" or "head and neck" cancer, which also predominantly affect men.) Their work appears to have [...]

Blue light tool could save lives of patients suffering from oral cancer

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress Author: Camille Bains, The Canadian Press A device that emits a blue light is giving patients undergoing surgery for oral cancer a fighting chance at survival and Canada is at the forefront of research that could have a global impact, researchers say. Doctors and scientists in nine Canadian cities began testing the tool last September as part of a five-year study on 400 patients who are suffering from cancer that has afflicted their tongue or other parts of the mouth. The hand-held fluorescence visualization tool allows surgeons to see cancer cells that can't be detected by conventional white light so they can remove the affected tissue and prevent the disease from recurring. Balvir Dhadda, 47, thought she'd been given a death sentence when she was diagnosed with the deadly disease four years ago after developing a sore underneath the left side of her tongue. "When I got diagnosed, I thought `That's it.'" But Dhadda credits the blue light device for saving her life. "This was the tool used on me, and the rest is history," Dhadda said Thursday. The tool ensured doctors removed only the tissue that was cancerous, rather than the usual practice of removing parts that might potentially be. "I think it was a major factor in the time it took me to recover afterwards," said Dhadda, of Surrey, B.C. Miriam Rosin, the principle investigator of the study, said the blue-light tool developed at the BC Cancer Agency had been used to detect lung, cervical and [...]

FDA to regulate cigarette pack labeling

Source: Dr.Bicuspid May 19, 2011 -- Cigarette manufacturers have deceived consumers about the risks of their products for years, and remedial actions are needed so consumers can make informed decisions about the products they purchase, according to researchers from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). The researchers evaluated the messages that cigarette pack labels convey to smokers and nonsmokers, and their findings will be published in three studies in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (June 2011, Vol. 40:6, pp. 674-698). "Tobacco companies have used attractive packaging and persuasive images to market their products for decades," said lead author Maansi Bansal-Travers, PhD, a behavioral research scientist at RPCI, in a press release. "These studies support efforts by the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to regulate cigarette pack labeling." Tobacco manufacturers have effectively used cigarette pack design, colors, and descriptive terms to create the illusion that filtered and so-called light/mild cigarettes are safer than unfiltered and full-flavor cigarettes, when this is not the case. Beginning in June 2010, regulations contained in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act have prohibited tobacco companies from using descriptive terms such as "light," "mild," or "low" in advertising and on cigarette packaging. "While the removal of these obviously misleading terms was a good first step, we discovered that cigarette manufacturers have circumvented the regulation by using different terms such as 'gold' and 'silver' and changing the colors on packs to continue to mislead consumers about their products," Bansal-Travers said. The [...]

E-Cigarettes: the facts

Source: Ivanhoe.com   Right now, there are 1.2 billion smokers worldwide, and 5 million of them die each year. Some experts say that death rate could double by the year 2030. While 1 million smokers now hope E-cigarettes cure their addiction, one academic says the data doesn’t add-up. Hollywood got Freda Souligny smoking at just 13. "It was a killer,” Souligny told Ivanhoe. Now 81, she had a pack-a-day habit for 61 years. She stopped when emphysema led her to electric cigarettes two months ago. "I didn’t feel this horrible withdrawal,” Souligny said. Battery-operated, they deliver nicotine vapor through an adjustable cartridge and cost about 60 bucks to start. Souligny kicked her habit by slowly cutting the nicotine dose over several weeks. However, Professor Tom Eissenberg says E-cigs are misleading. “We wanted to know if they really delivered nicotine -- one of the things they’re supposed to do -- if they really produce some of the same effects as a tobacco cigarette,” Eissenberg, Ph.D., from Virginia Commonwealth University, told Ivanhoe.       A pair of studies found while real cigarettes deliver nicotine, E-cigs do not -- despite claiming to do so. “Neither of them delivered nicotine, which was surprising, because that is, in fact, exactly what they are supposed to do,” Eissenberg said. He says smoking an E-cig is just like puffing on an unlit cigarette. There's no nicotine, no tobacco … nothing. Souligny doesn’t agree. “Well, you have to tell me what changed my life,” Souligny said. “It [...]

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 [...]

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

Florida ruling Big Tobacco won comes back to bite it

Source: seattletimes.nwsource.com Author: Curt Anderson A Florida Supreme Court ruling that threw out a $145 billion award against cigarette makers is biting Big Tobacco back, making it dramatically easier for thousands of smokers to sue and turning the state into the nation's hot spot for damage awards. The 2006 ruling has helped generate more than $360 million in damage awards in only about two dozen cases. Thousands more cases are in the pipeline in Florida, which has far more smoking-related lawsuits pending than any other state. Though the justices tossed the $145 billion class-action damage award, they allowed about 8,000 individual members of that class to pursue their own lawsuits. And in a critical decision, they allowed those plaintiffs to use the original jury's findings from the class-action case. That means the plaintiffs don't have to prove that cigarette makers sold a defective and dangerous product, were negligent, hid the risks of smoking and that cigarettes cause illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease. The plaintiffs must mainly show they were addicted to smoking and could not quit, and that their illness - or a smoker's death - was caused by cigarettes. Jurors have sided with smokers or their families in about two-thirds of the 34 cases tried since February 2009, when the first Florida lawsuit following the rules set by the Supreme Court decision went before a jury. Awards have ranged from $2 million or less to $80 million, though tobacco companies are appealing them all. The successes [...]

2011-02-19T10:02:14-07:00February, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Wrong way to go smoke-free

Source: Newsobserver.com By: Joseph G.L. Lee CHAPEL HILL -- So, now R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company wants to help smokers "break free" from tobacco? That statement should make parents, health care providers and smokers nervous. Last month, Reynolds promoted its Camel Snus (a "spit-free" tobacco pouch) with advertisements in national magazines that read "If you've decided to quit tobacco use, we support you," under a large "2011 Smoke-free Resolution" banner. Reynolds then offered its smoke-free snus as the solution. For smokers, the majority of whom try to quit every year, the message should be to quit tobacco use, not to substitute one form of cancer for another. No safe form of tobacco use exists. Smokers who try tobacco snus products are at high risk of becoming addicted to both cigarettes and snus, thus continuing or even adding to their risk for lung, bladder, breast, cervical, oral and pancreatic cancer. In addition to running these misleading ads in People, Time and Rolling Stone, R.J. Reynolds is continuing a long-standing practice of targeting vulnerable populations such as young people, African-Americans and gays and lesbians. Last year, research in the medical journal Pediatrics implicated Reynolds' "Camel No. 9" campaign in an increase in smoking among young teenage girls. The tobacco industry has long targeted African-Americans by focusing on marketing and so-called "corporate social responsibility" strategies to buy favor with civil rights organizations. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco estimated that the approximately $25 million in tobacco industry corporate philanthropy that funded African-American [...]

2011-02-03T12:09:00-07:00February, 2011|Oral Cancer News|
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