9/3/2007 Atlanta, GA press release DentalPlans.com The National Cancer Institute has awarded a five-year, $12.5 million Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant in head and neck cancer to Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute. This is the first SPORE grant ever received in the state of Georgia. SPORE grants are large, multidisciplinary federal grants that fund scientific research aimed at bringing new laboratory findings quickly to the clinic. They are highly competitive grants and are sought after by the most prestigious research and medical facilities across the country. With an expected 40,000 new cases and 11,500 deaths in 2007, squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck accounts for four percent to five percent of all newly diagnosed cancers in the U.S. When the more than two-thirds of head and neck cancer patients first receive a diagnosis it is considered a locally advanced disease, which has a poor five-year survival rate after treatment with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy. According to recent National Cancer Institute statistics, southeastern states rank among the highest in the nation in head and neck cancer incidence. "Head and neck cancer can be a devastating disease," says Dong Moon Shin, MD, professor of hematology and oncology at Emory Winship and principal investigator of the grant. "Our focus on this grant is to facilitate, critically review and rapidly move new discoveries to patients. Our goal is to decrease the morbidity, suffering, disability and death caused by this disease. "Because of the large number of aging smokers and ex-smokers [...]

9/1/2007 Little Falls, NJ Neil Osterweil MedPageToday.com A star chef with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue is undergoing aggressive chemoradiation hoping to avoid a resection that would cripple his sense of taste. Grant Achatz, the nationally known chef, who is just 33, announced his condition a few weeks ago. He is owner of Alinea, a restaurant named as the best in the country by Gourmet. According to Janet Adamy, a food writer in the Chicago bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Achatz is renowned for his meticulous plate preparations, audacious food pairings, and meals consisting of up to 30 tiny portions that can last up to seven hours and set diners back more than $200 each. But when he was diagnosed with stage IVb squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue -- a lesion most often treated by surgical resection, reconstruction, and irradiation, or in advanced cases palliative radiation alone -- Achatz feared that he would lose his sense of taste. For an artist of the palate, it was unthinkable. Instead, Achatz pinned his hopes on an investigational protocol in phase II trials at the University of Chicago. "We take an organ-preservation or primary non-surgical approach to treating these patients, because even if you're not a chef who needs to preserve your taste, many patients want to preserve their ability to speak and swallow, for obvious reasons," said Ezra Cohen, M.D., a member of the University of Chicago team treating Achatz. Achatz is one of about 40 [...]

9/1/2007 Little Falls, NJ Crystal Phend MedPageToday.com Human papillomavirus infections are likely buoying up oropharyngeal cancer rates while other head and neck cancers decline, researchers said. Cancer-causing HPV strains have been implicated in half of oropharyngeal cancers, and 90% of HPV-related cases have been pinpointed to HPV-16 in studies, said Erich M. Sturgis, M.D., M.P.H., and Paul M. Cinciripini, M.D., both of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center here, in a review published online in the journal Cancer. One of the reasons, the researchers suggested is the "changing sexual practices, such as more frequent oral sex in adolescents and young adults." To hasten throat cancer's decline, vaccination of boys and and men against oncogenic strains HPV-16 and HPV-18 should be considered, they suggested. "The current vaccination strategy [suggested for girls and young women ages nine to 26] will only benefit men secondarily as the cohort of vaccinated women age and the incidence of chronic oncogenic HPV infection in the sexually active female population declines," the investigators wrote. This effect may take a generation to achieve, they said. To speed up the potential benefit in the prevention of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancers, Drs. Sturgis and Cinciripini recommended "the rapid study of the efficacy and safety of these vaccines in males and, if successful, the recommendation of vaccination in young adult and adolescent males." Tobacco smoking has been the major cause of head and neck cancers overall. But when smoking prevalence started to slide in the 1970s, the incidence of head and neck cancers [...]

9/1/2007 Boston, MA Marshall Posner The Oncologist, Vol. 12, No. 8, 967-974, August 2007 Introduction: Head and neck cancers account for 3%–5% of all cancer cases in the U.S., annually [1]. The American Cancer Society estimated that 34,360 new cases of oral cavity and pharynx cancers will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2007, and approximately 7,550 deaths will be attributed to these diseases [2]. While therapeutic options for head and neck cancers have evolved over the past 30 years, the prognosis and disease-free survival interval for patients with locally advanced head and neck cancers, those patients presenting with stage III or stage IV disease, have remained less than optimal [3]. Treatment of locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) is complicated by disease site and volume, prognosis, functional deficits associated with therapeutic choices, therapy-associated toxicities, and the needs and condition of individual patients. Initially, standard therapy focused on surgical resection with or without radiation or radiation therapy alone for technically unresectable cancers. However, in an effort to increase the probability of organ preservation, locoregional control, and survival, advanced clinical studies were directed toward refining the use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in a combined-modality setting. Emerging data on the benefits of induction, concurrent, and sequential therapy regimens now suggest the possibility of better prognosis and organ preservation, with less morbidity [4–14]. These data offer new insights into optimal treatment regimens for SCCHN. COMBINED-MODALITY REGIMENS While SCCHN is potentially curable in its early stages, >60% of patients [...]