vaccines – Oral Cancer News

Johns Hopkins engineers develop deep-learning technology that may aid personalized cancer therapy

Source: scitechdaily.com Author: by Johns Hopkins Medicine Cytotoxic CD8+ T-cells recognizing cancer cells by receptor binding neoantigens. Credit: Image generated by DALL-E 2 from OpenAI A team of engineers and cancer researchers from Johns Hopkins has developed a deep-learning technology capable of accurately predicting protein fragments linked to cancer, which might trigger an immune system response. Should this technology prove successful in clinical tests, it could address a significant challenge in the creation of personalized immunotherapies and vaccines. In a study published July 20 in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, investigators from Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering, the Johns Hopkins Institute for Computational Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, and the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy show that their deep-learning method, called BigMHC, can identify protein fragments on cancer cells that elicit a tumor cell-killing immune response, an essential step in understanding response to immunotherapy and in developing personalized cancer therapies. “Cancer immunotherapy is designed to activate a patient’s immune system to destroy cancer cells,” says Rachel Karchin, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering, oncology, and computer science, and a core member of the Institute for Computational Medicine. “A critical step in the process is immune system recognition of cancer cells through T cell binding to cancer-specific protein fragments on the cell surface.” The cancer protein fragments that elicit this tumor-killing immune response may originate from changes in the genetic makeup of cancer cells (or mutations), called mutation-associated neoantigens. Each patient’s tumor has a unique set of such neoantigens [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-08-13T12:32:46-07:00August, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer experts warn about wave of HPV-related cancers in adults

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center Experts are concerned about rapidly rising rates of HPV-related throat and mouth cancers, noting that if this trend continues they could quickly be among the most common forms of cancer in adults between ages 45 and 65. Recent estimates suggest that middle throat cancer (known medically as oropharyngeal cancer) may become one of the top three cancers among middle-aged men in the United States by 2045, and the most common form of cancer among elderly men in the next 10 years. According to Matthew Old, MD, a head and neck surgeon at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James), this rise of middle throat cancers in this age group is due to the direct impact of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection before modern vaccines were introduced in 2006. HPV is a large group of viruses spread through skin-to-skin and oral contact that occurs during sexual activity. The virus spreads easily, and an estimated 98% of the population has been exposed to it. HPV can remain dormant for decades. High-risk strains of the virus have long been linked to increased risk of cervical cancer; however, data from the past decade shows high-risk HPV is also strongly linked to cancers of the head and neck (mouth, base of tongue and throat). In 2006, Gardasil introduced an HPV vaccine, which is administered in youth between the ages of 9 and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-06-15T05:38:03-07:00June, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Study: HPV vaccination will reduce throat and mouth cancers, but overall impact will take 25-plus years to see

Source: www.newswise.com Author: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Vaccinations against human papillomavirus (HPV), a major cause of throat and back of mouth cancers, are expected to yield significant reductions in the rates of these cancers in the U.S., but will not do so until after 2045, according to a new modeling study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infectious virus worldwide. HPV infections are often silent, and while most infections clear, some are chronic and can trigger cancers including mouth and throat (oropharyngeal), and cervical cancer because they disrupt DNA and inhibit tumor-suppressor proteins in the cells they infect. Although there is no cure for existing HPV infections, new infections are preventable with vaccines, the first of which entered use in the U.S. in 2006. In the new study, the Bloomberg School researchers analyzed national databases on oropharyngeal cancer cases and HPV vaccinations, and projected the impact of HPV vaccination on the rates of these cancers in different age groups. They estimated that the oropharyngeal cancer rate would nearly halve between 2018 and 2045 among people ages 36–45. However, they also projected that the rate in the overall population would stay about the same from 2018-2045, due to still-rising rates of these cancers in older people, where most of these cancers occur. The study appears online September 2 in JAMA Oncology. “We estimate that most of the oropharyngeal cancers from 2018 to 2045 will occur among [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2021-09-03T12:26:37-07:00September, 2021|Oral Cancer News|

Personalized vaccines: the new frontier in cancer treatment

Source: www.wildcat.arizona.edu Author: Udbhav Venkataraman Exciting results from a new clinical study showed that a personalized vaccine combined with an immunotherapy drug had a promising response rate in patients with advanced incurable head and neck cancer. Dr. Julie Bauman, chief of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Tucson, led a phase one clinical trial with the pharmaceutical company, Moderna, to test the combined use of personalized vaccines created from tumor DNA with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab. Of the 10 patients involved in the study, five of the them responded to the treatment, meaning 30% of the cancer mass had decreased. Furthermore, two of the patients completely responded, meaning that cancer could not be detected. Molly Cassidy is one of those two patients. What was initially determined to be a stress-related ear-ache turned out to be an aggressive case of squamous cell carcinoma, a form of head and neck cancer. Head and neck cancers impact the linings of the mouth and throat. Risk factors for this disease include alcohol consumption, smoking and other environmental carcinogens that we are all exposed to. It can also be caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). Cassidy did not fit this profile at all. “I’m HPV-negative. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I’m a woman. I was the first person in my family to have cancer. I was 35 when I got my diagnosis,” Cassidy said. “I was also in really good health … To hear that I had cancer was [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-12-09T06:51:37-07:00December, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

National Vaccination Program Leads To Marked Reduction In HPV Infections

Source: Forbes Date: January 28th, 2020 Author: Nina Shapiro While widespread vaccination continues to be a source of contention in this country and others, one of the newer vaccines has begun to demonstrate remarkable positive impact, which will hopefully become harder and harder to dispute. The HPV vaccine, with trade name GardasilR, is recommended for both boys and girls, ideally sometime between ages 11 and 12 years, given in two doses at a six month interval. It can be given as early as age 9, and as late as age 26. Older adults, even up to age 45, can receive the vaccine, although it is more likely that these adults have already been exposed to the virus, and are less likely to be protected by the vaccine. The vaccine prevents infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause health problems ranging from nuisance-causing warts to cancer-causing lesions of the cervix, throat, and anorectal area. When HPV-related cancers hit Hollywood, with Michael Douglas publicly attributing his throat cancer to HPV, it became clear that this disease can no doubt affect both men and women. When Marcia Cross announced that her anal cancer was due to HPV infection, it raised yet another red flag that HPV can affect the lower gastrointestinal tract, not just the female reproductive tract. Indeed, HPV can affect any of us, at any age, from stem to stern. As I wrote in an earlier Forbes piece, the vaccine to prevent HPV can prevent not only sexually transmitted [...]

Charlotte Parker2020-01-30T12:16:44-07:00January, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Whole Foods is selling dangerous anti-vaccine propaganda in its checkout aisles

Source: Insider Date: December 10th, 2019 Author: Maddie Stone More than any other major grocery store, Whole Foods has made healthy living central to its brand. Based on the Amazon-owned supermarket's tremendous popularity, it's a strategy that has worked. If you look past the colorful organic produce displays and sustainably-sourced seafood counter, however, you'll start to notice incongruities. There's nothing particularly healthful, for instance, about the homeopathy aisle — a section of Whole Foods' Whole Body Department that sells 19th century pseudoscience masquerading as cold and flu remedies — or the shelves filled with supplements and probiotics making claims that often don't hold up to scientific scrutiny. But all of this pales in comparison to the disinformation Whole Foods is selling in its check-out aisle: magazines with articles promoting vaccine skepticism. Insider recently found several magazines that have run articles raising unfounded concerns about the safety or efficacy of vaccines. These messages are not only out of line with the mainstream medical consensus, they are actively dangerous, according to public health experts. Scattered amongst the breezy magazines devoted to healthy cooking and pet care are titles like Well Being Journal, a bi-monthly publication sold at Whole Foods stores in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, among other locations. It has published articles that tout medically unsupported homeopathic therapies as "non-toxic" alternatives to vaccination. Others promote the debunked link between the MMR vaccine and autism. One particularly egregious article in a 2017 issue, adapted from a defunct anti-vaccine [...]

Charlotte Parker2019-12-12T12:09:36-07:00December, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

How Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Took Hold in the United States

Source: The New York Times Date: September 23, 2019 Author: Jan Hoffman As families face back-to-school medical requirements this month, the country feels the impact of a vaccine resistance movement decades in the making. The question is often whispered, the questioners sheepish. But increasingly, parents at the Central Park playground where Dr. Elizabeth A. Comen takes her young children have been asking her: “Do you vaccinate your kids?” Dr. Comen, an oncologist who has treated patients for cancers related to the human papillomavirus that a vaccine can now prevent, replies emphatically: Absolutely. She never imagined she would be getting such queries. Yet these playground exchanges are reflective of the national conversation at the end of the second decade of the 21st century — a time of stunning scientific and medical advances but also a time when the United States may, next month, lose its World Health Organization designation as a country that has eliminated measles, because of outbreaks this year. The W.H.O. has listed vaccine hesitancy as one of the top threats to global health. As millions of families face back-to-school medical requirements and forms this month, the contentiousness surrounding vaccines is heating up again, with possibly even more fervor. Though the situation may seem improbable to some, anti-vaccine sentiment has been building for decades, a byproduct of an internet humming with rumor and misinformation; the backlash against Big Pharma; an infatuation with celebrities that gives special credence to the anti-immunization statements from actors like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and Alicia Silverstone, the rapper Kevin Gates and Robert F. [...]

Charlotte Parker2019-09-24T11:31:18-07:00September, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Scientists Confirm There’s Nothing But Misinformation On Anti-Vax Sites

Source: Huffington Post, LIFE Author: Agata Blaszczak-Boxe Date: 11/04/18 Many websites that promote unscientific views about vaccinations use pseudoscience and misinformation to spread the idea that vaccines are dangerous, according to a new study. For example, of the nearly 500 anti-vaccination websites examined in the study, nearly two-thirds claimed that vaccines cause autism, the researchers found. However, multiple studies have shown that there is no link between vaccines and autism. About two-thirds of the websites used information that they represented as scientific evidence, but in fact was not, to support their claims that vaccines are dangerous, and about one-third used people's anecdotes to reinforce those claims, the scientists found. Some websites also cited actual peer-reviewed studies as their sources of information, but they misinterpreted and misrepresented the findings of these studies. "So the science itself was strong, but the way it was being interpreted was not very accurate," said study author Meghan Moran, an associate professor in Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School's Department of Health, Behavior and Society. "It was being distorted to support an anti-vaccine agenda." In the study, the researchers looked at websites with content about childhood vaccines. They used four search engines to find the sites — Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves — and searched for terms including "immunization dangers" and "vaccine danger" as well as other phrases. Their final sample of 480 anti-vaccination websites included a mix of personal websites, blogs, Facebook pages and health websites. The researchers examined the content of the websites, looking for [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-11-26T10:36:47-07:00November, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Research Update: Vaccine Plus Checkpoint Inhibitor Combos for HPV-related Cancers

Source: MedPage Today Author: Mark L. Feurst Two new studies show the profound impact of a combined vaccine and anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) antibody approach in the treatment of human papilloma virus (HPV)-related cancers. HPV causes nearly all cervical cancers, as well as most oropharyngeal, anal, penile, vulvar, and vaginal cancers. HPV16 and HPV18 are the leading viral genotypes that increase cancer risk. Given the viral cause of these cancers, immunotherapy has been considered a strong potential approach. Many patients with the HPV16 and HPV18 subtypes of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma have good outcomes from treatment that includes surgery or chemotherapy and radiation. Although anti-PD-1 therapy is approved for patients who do not respond to treatment or who develop metastatic disease, it benefits only about 15% of patients. The theory, therefore, is that a vaccine could potentially boost the immune systems of patients with HPV-related head and neck cancer, opening the door for better responses to other existing therapies. Vaccine + Nivolumab in Phase II Study In the first study, a phase II trial, a tumor-specific vaccine combined with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab was found to shrink tumors in patients with incurable HPV-related cancers. "Ours are the first results with this particular approach," Bonnie Glisson, MD, of the Department of Thoracic Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told the Reading Room. "The rates of response and survival are approximately double what have been observed with nivolumab given alone [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-11-08T13:07:57-07:00November, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

FDA approves expanded use of Gardasil 9 to include individuals 27 through 45 years old

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved a supplemental application for Gardasil 9 (Human Papillomavirus (HPV) 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant) expanding the approved use of the vaccine to include women and men aged 27 through 45 years. Gardasil 9 prevents certain cancers and diseases caused by the nine HPV types covered by the vaccine. “Today’s approval represents an important opportunity to help prevent HPV-related diseases and cancers in a broader age range,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. ”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that HPV vaccination prior to becoming infected with the HPV types covered by the vaccine has the potential to prevent more than 90 percent of these cancers, or 31,200 cases every year, from ever developing.” According to the CDC, every year about 14 million Americans become infected with HPV; about 12,000 women are diagnosed with and about 4,000 women die from cervical cancer caused by certain HPV viruses. Additionally, HPV viruses are associated with several other forms of cancer affecting men and women. Gardasil, a vaccine approved by the FDA in 2006 to prevent certain cancers and diseases caused by four HPV types, is no longer distributed in the U.S. In 2014, the FDA approved Gardasil 9, which covers the same four HPV types as Gardasil, as well as an additional five HPV types. Gardasil 9 was approved for use in males and females aged 9 through 26 years. The effectiveness of Gardasil is [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-10-08T09:23:24-07:00October, 2018|Oral Cancer News|