2/17/2008 Knoxville, KY Kristi L. Nelson knoxnews.com A long, deep yawn. A bite of a chocolate bar or crab meat. A vigorous brushing and thorough flossing. For 2 1/2 years, Esther Cahal has forgone these and other small pleasures most people take for granted. An unusual complication from a rare form of particularly aggressive tongue cancer left Cahal's mouth locked shut, able to open barely wide enough to insert her little finger. She stays alive by hooking herself up to a feeding tube unit each night and sleeping in an upright position while she "eats" a liquid nutritional supplement for eight hours through a port in her stomach. A little more than a year ago, Cahal, facing a recurrence of her cancer, "decided that before I die, I'm going to eat again," Cahal said. "If this cancer's going to kill me, at least I'm going to have something good down my throat." But Cahal has had two "clear" scans for cancer - and now an innovative physical therapy treatment is helping open her up to experiencing food again. It started in February 2004, when Cahal's dentist found an ulcer on the right side of her tongue. She thought the skin was irritated by a tooth, but when the tooth was fixed, the ulcer still didn't heal. So she had a biopsy. "It came back as extremely aggressive cancer," Cahal said. "It was a surprise for everybody, because I didn't have any risk factors." The type of cancer Cahal had most [...]

2/14/2008 web-based article staff BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk) One million people a year will die from tobacco smoking in India during the 2010s, research predicts. The New England Journal of Medicine study found smoking already accounts for 900,000 deaths a year in India. The study warns that without action, the death toll from smoking will climb still further. It predicts smoking could soon account for 20% of all male deaths and 5% of all female deaths between the ages of 30 and 69. The researchers have calculated that on average, men who smoke bidi - small hand-rolled cigarettes common in India - lose about six years of life. Men who smoke full-size cigarettes shorten their lives by about ten years. And for women bidi smokers the figure is about eight years. The figures are based on a survey of deaths among a sample of 1.1 million homes in all parts of India carried out by about 900 field workers. Among men who died between the ages of 30 and 69, smoking caused about 38% of deaths from tuberculosis, 32% of deaths from cancer and 20% of deaths from vascular disease. Surprising findings Lead researcher Professor Prabhat Jha, of the University of Toronto, said: "The extreme risks from smoking that we found surprised us, as smokers in India start at a later age than those in Europe or America and smoke less." It is estimated that there are about 120 million smokers in India. The study found that, among men, about 61% [...]

2/10/2008 Escondido, CA Mike Stobbe NCTimes (www.nctimes.com) The sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer in women is poised to become one of the leading causes of oral cancer in men, according to a new study. HPV now causes as many cancers of the upper throat as tobacco and alcohol, probably due both to an increase in oral sex and the decline in smoking, researchers say. The only available vaccine against HPV, made by Merck & Co. Inc., is currently given only to girls and young women. But Merck plans this year to ask government permission to offer the shot to boys. Experts say a primary reason for male vaccinations would be to prevent men from spreading the virus and help reduce the nearly 12,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed in U.S. women each year. But the new study should add to the argument that there may be a direct benefit for men, too. “We need to start having a discussion about those cancers other than cervical cancer that may be affected in a positive way by the vaccine,” said study co-author Dr. Maura Gillison of Johns Hopkins University. The study was published recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is the leading cause of cervical cancer in women. It also can cause genital warts, penile and anal cancer -- risks for males that generally don't get the same attention as cervical cancer. Previous research by Gillison and others established HPV as a primary cause of [...]

2/9/2008 Ketchum, ID staff CancerConsultants.com Researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have reported that the addition of radiation therapy (RT) following surgery improves survival in locally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (HNSCC). The details of this study appeared in the February 1, 2008 issue of Cancer. HNSCC is the most common type of head and neck cancer. Standard treatment for this stage of disease typically consists of surgery and radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy. The impact of radiation therapy on survival, however, has not been clearly established. Researchers recently conducted a clinical study to evaluate data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to determine the effect that radiation therapy has on survival for patients with locally advanced HNSCC. This study included 8,795 patients whose cancer had spread to lymph nodes. They were treated either with surgery alone or surgery plus radiation therapy. Patients had been diagnosed with cancer between 1988 and 2001. The median follow-up was just over four years. - At five years survival was improved among patients treated with radiation therapy (43.2%) compared with those treated with surgery only (33.4%). - Death caused by the cancer occurred in approximately 50% of patients treated with surgery and radiation therapy compared with 78% of patients treated with surgery only. The researchers concluded that the addition of “RT resulted in an approximately 10% absolute increase in 5-year cancer-specific survival and overall survival for patients with lymph node-positive HNSCC compared with surgery [...]

2/9/2008 Lyon, France staff PharmaLive (www.medadnews.com) A combined analysis of four phase II/III studies which enrolled more than 20,000 women confirmed that the quadrivalent (6,11,16,18) cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil® has sustained 98% to 100% efficacy in the prevention of vaccine virus type-related precancerous cervical lesions in young women. These new data were presented this week at the 19th International Congress on Anti-Cancer Treatment (ICACT) in Paris, France.[1] "The results complete Gardasil®'s impressive track record of sustained high efficacy. They include by far the longest follow-up for any cervical cancer vaccine in large phase III studies and strongly substantiate the evidence that the protection provided by Gardasil® will be long-lasting", comments lead study investigator Prof. Elmar Joura, from the University of Vienna, Austria. In light of the high and sustained efficacy of Gardasil®, the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board of the large phase III studies in young women (FUTURE I & II) had recommended that these studies be terminated as soon as feasible in order to provide the benefits of Gardasil® to the women in the placebo group. Thus, the studies were ended earlier than originally planned and the women in the placebo group have been vaccinated. In the primary study population of young women (16-26 years)[*], Gardasil® prevented 98%[†] of HPV 16/18-related precancerous cervical lesions (CIN2/3[‡] or AIS[§]) according to the combined analysis. Supplementary analyses in a sub-population of young women (16-26 years)[**] revealed 100%[††] efficacy against HPV 16/18-related CIN2/3 or AIS. The sub-population approximates even better than the [...]

2/9/2008 Blue Bell, PA staff InteliHealth (www.intelihealth.com) Human papillomavirus is becoming one of the main causes of oral cancer in men. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that HPV causes as many cases of upper throat cancer as tobacco and alcohol. The researchers attribute this to an increase in oral sex and a decline in smoking. The study looked at more than 30 years of data on oral cancer from the National Cancer Institute. It categorized about 46,000 cases of cancer, based on the cause, and determined that the incidence of HPV-related oral cancers had been rising steadily in men between 1973 and 2004. Within 10 years, HPV could cause more oral cancers than tobacco or alcohol, they say. On the more positive side, the tumors caused by HPV respond better to chemotherapy and radiation than others, The Associated Press reports. The findings could give a boost to efforts to make the Gardasil vaccine against HPV available to boys. Currently, it is only approved for use in girls and young women.

2/9/2008 Paris, France Shazia Qureshi Doctor's Guide (www.docguide.com) Combination therapy with capecitabine and docetaxel showed a partial response in 38.5% of patients with advanced head and neck cancer, according to findings from a study reported here at the 19th International Congress on Anti-Cancer Treatment (ICACT). Docetaxel and capecitabine previously have been shown to be useful drugs in the treatment of head and neck cancer," said the study's lead author, Joan Manel Mañé, MD, Medical Oncologist, Hospital de Cruces, Bilbao, Spain, who presented the study in a poster session on February 7. For this reason, her team conducted a study to evaluate the combination of these two drugs in nonselected patients with advanced ormetastatic head and neck cancer. Dr. Mañé and colleagues enrolled 33 patients with a mean age of 60 years who presented with squamous-cell locally advanced or metastatic (M1) head and neck cancer. One patient was female. The cancer was local in 49% of patients, local and M1 in 36% of patients, and M1 in 15% of patients. Of those patients whose cancer was staged as M1, the main site of the metastasis was the lungs in 76.5% of patients, lymph nodes in 11.8%, bone in 5.9%, and soft tissue in 5.9% of patients. The treatment regimen consisted of 75 mg/m2 of docetaxel on day 1, and capecitabine at a dose of 950 mg/m2 every 12 hours on days 2 to 14. Patients received this combination therapy every 3 weeks for a mean of 4 treatment cycles (range 1-7). [...]

2/7/2008 web-based article Henry Goldman and Bill Varner Bloomberg (www.bloomberg.com) Tobacco use will kill 1 billion people in this century, a 10-fold increase over the past 100 years, unless governments in poor nations raise taxes on consumption and mandate health warnings, the World Health Organization said. No country fully implements these most important tobacco- control measures, according to a 330-page report released today by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Geneva-based UN agency. Bloomberg, who helped fund the study, joined WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at a news conference in New York to discuss the findings. "This is a unique point in public health history as the forces of political will, policies and funding are aligned to create the momentum needed to dramatically reduce tobacco use and save millions of lives by the middle of this century," Chan said in a foreword to the report. The WHO said the tobacco "epidemic" causes the deaths of 5.4 million people a year due to lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. That figure might rise to 8 million per year by 2030, including 80 percent in "countries whose rapidly growing economies offer their citizens the hope of a better life," the report said. American States The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, said states are falling short on U.S. recommendations to boost insurance coverage of proven anti-smoking treatments that fight nicotine addiction. The Atlanta-based U.S. government agency said eight states' Medicaid programs, which serve [...]

2/7/2008 web-based article Larry Hamburg newsweek.com As a dentist, I always encouraged my patients to take their health seriously. So why did I keep ignoring that lump in my neck? I'm a dentist with oral cancer. Even worse, I'm a dentist who ignored his oral cancer. In spite of playing tennis every Tuesday with a physician friend, having many patients who are doctors and staff members who could have checked a bulge in my neck, I ignored it. I don't know why I didn't act sooner. After all, I'm a doctor, and I have always told my patients to take their health seriously. But I guess I'm human first. You see, I had missed just one day of work in 24 years of dentistry and, like my dentist-father before me, I never thought there could be anything wrong with me. Somewhere inside I must have thought I could be immune from the very disease I try to help patients prevent. But reality started to hit me in December 2006. One morning, dressing for work, I went to button my shirt before putting on my tie. The collar was tight. I assumed I was getting fatter, or older, or possibly both. But upon further examination I noticed a swollen gland to the right of my Adam's apple. I was fighting an infection, I thought. I ignored it-for six months. One day I asked my hygienist to check my neck. She suggested I have a doctor look at it right away. I [...]

2/6/2008 Washington, D.C. Sarah Baldauf US News (health.usnews.com) The malignancy is on the rise. Here are four protective measures Oral cancer has been on the rise over the past 30 years — particularly among young men — according to research published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The cancer, which most often strikes after age 40, isusually caused by tobacco or alcohol. But it's also linked in both genders to human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can be transmitted through oral sex. (That virus is also the prime cause of cervical cancer.) "Oral cancer kills about half the people who get it in the first five years," says Richard Price, a spokesman for the American Dental Association, "not because it's so virulent but because it's [often not] detect[ed]." That's why vigilance is crucial. To protect yourself: • See a dentist regularly. Be sure he or she checks your tongue and the area under your tongue, as well as your lips and palate and the back of your throat. • Get swabbed. Ask your dentist for the BrushTest, which detects abnormal cells, if you notice a change in the mouth such as a sore that won't heal or bleeds easily; a lump, thickening, crust, or erosion; pain or tenderness; or a change in the way your teeth are positioned. • Ditch cigarettes and alcohol. The combination accounts for 75 percent of cases, and tobacco use is the single biggest risk factor for oral cancer. • Load up on [...]