January 2009 – Page 2 – Oral Cancer News

HPV testing followed by cytology and repeat HPV testing may improve cervical cancer screening

Source: JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2009 101(2):69 Author: staff The use of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing as an initial screening step followed by triage with a standard Pap test (cytology) and repeat HPV DNA testing may increase the accuracy of cervical cancer screening, according to a study in the Jan. 13 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Compared to cytology alone, the screening strategy improved detection of precancerous growths without a substantial increase in the number of false-positive tests. Randomized trials have shown that using DNA testing for HPV—which is known to cause cervical cancer—in screening programs would increase detection of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) compared with cytology. However, HPV DNA testing also results in a substantial increase in false-positive tests, which lead to unnecessary and costly retesting. In the current study, Joakim Dillner, M.D. of Lund University in Malmö, Sweden, and colleagues compared the efficacy of 11 different screening strategies that used HPV DNA testing, cytology, or a combination of the two. To evaluate the different strategies the investigators retrospectively analyzed data from 6,257 women who were enrolled in the intervention arm of a large randomized screening trial, called Swedescreen, in which HPV DNA testing was used in addition to standard cytology. As seen in previous trials, the use of HPV DNA testing in conjunction with cytology increased the screening efficacy, detecting 35 percent more cases of CIN grade 3 or worse, compared with cytology alone. The strategy, however, doubled the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-26T08:49:12-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Noted Hopkins scientist says research indicates need for effective HPV vaccine for women and men and a simple HPV screening test

Source: www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org/news Author: press release A call to explore a broader use of HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines and the validation of a simple oral screening test for HPV-caused oral cancers are reported in two studies by a Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center investigator. Leading HPV expert Maura Gillison, M.D., Ph.D., the first to identify HPV infection as the cause of certain oral cancers and who identified multiple sex partners as the most important risk factor for these cancers, reports her latest work in the November 3, 2008, journal Clinical Cancer Research and in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monograph. The CDC report on HPV-associated cancers appears on line November 3 and in the November 15, 2008, supplement edition of Cancer. In the CDC report, believed to be the first and most comprehensive assessment of HPV-associated cancer data in the United States, investigators analyzed cancer registry data from 1998-2003 and found 25,000 cancer cases each year occurred at cancer sites associated with HPV infection. In additional analysis, Gillison and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute identified HPV infection as the underlying cause of approximately 20,000 of these cancers. Gillison and team found approximately 20,000 cases of cancer in the United States each year are caused by HPV infection. Oral cancers are the second most common type of HPV-associated cancers and are increasing in incidence in the U.S., particularly among men. Add to that anal, penile, vaginal, and vulvar cancers that are also linked to HPV infection, and Gillison [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-25T16:27:22-07:00January, 2009|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Study: Do more to help patients quit smoking

Source: www.timeswv.com Author: Mary Wade Burnside A survey of cancer patients being treated at the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center indicates that many of the smokers did not quit the habit in light of their diagnosis and some of them were not even advised to do so by their doctors. “It absolutely benefits patients to quit,” said Dr. Jame Abraham, chief of oncology at WVU Hospitals and the medical director of the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center in Morgantown. “No. 1, we know that smoking can potentially alter the effectiveness of chemotherapy. “No. 2, smoking can cause many other conditions, including lung cancer and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and smoking can increase the chance of getting pneumonia and lung disease, which can complicate the ability to take the treatment.” The study was the idea of Lola Burke, now a second-year medical student who performed much of the survey work, Abraham said. Burke sent surveys to 1,000 cancer patients, and 200 of them responded. Of the 200 who responded, 52 percent had a history of smoking, but only 20 percent had been actively smoking at the time of the diagnosis, Abraham said. Of the active smokers, 44 percent quit while 56 percent did not, Abraham said. “Another thing we found was that 40 percent were not told by the doctors to quit,” he added. “They didn’t even hear this from their doctors or their health-care provider.” Bruce Adkins, director of the Division of Tobacco Prevention for the West Virginia Bureau [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-25T08:51:25-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Developing smokeless tobacco products for smokers: an examination of tobacco industry documents

Source: Tobacco Control 2009;18:54-59 Authors: C M Carpente et al. Objective: To investigate whether development of smokeless tobacco products (SLT) is intended to target current smokers. Methods: This study analysed internal tobacco industry documents to describe research related to the smokeless tobacco market. Relevant documents included those detailing the development and targeting of SLT products with a particular emphasis on moist snuff. Results: Cigarette and SLT manufacturers recognised that shifting demographics of SLT users, as well as indoor smoking restrictions, health concerns and reduced social acceptability of smoking could impact the growth of the SLT market. Manufacturers developed new SLT products to target cigarette smokers promoting dual cigarette and SLT use. Conclusions: Heavy marketing of new SLT products may encourage dual use and result in unknown public health effects. SLT products have been designed to augment cigarette use and offset regulatory strategies such as clean indoor air laws. In the United States, the SLT strategy may provide cigarette companies with a diversified range of products under the prospect of federal regulation. These products may pose significant challenges to efforts by federal agencies to reduce harm caused by tobacco use. Authors: C M Carpenter1, G N Connolly1, O A Ayo-Yusuf2, G Ferris Wayne1 Authors' affiliations: 1 Harvard School of Public Health, Division of Public Health Practice, Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2 Department of Community Dentistry, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-24T08:59:08-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Merck Serono launches Erbitux in 1st-line treatment of head and neck cancer in Europe

Source: www.medadnews.com Author: press release Today leading oncology specialists and media gathered at the Antwerp University Hospital to mark the European launch of Erbitux® (cetuximab) for the 1st-line treatment of patients with recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN), following European Commission approval to extend the use of the targeted therapy. Erbitux was previously approved for use in combination with radiotherapy for locally advanced SCCHN. The approval of Erbitux in this new indication was granted in November 2008 and based primarily upon the results of the EXTREMEa study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in September 2008. The EXTREME study established that adding Erbitux to platinum-based chemotherapy significantly prolonged median overall and progression-free survival, and also significantly increased response rate.1 The principal investigator of the EXTREME trial, Professor Jan Vermorken from the Antwerp University Hospital, a world renowned center of excellence in oncology research and treatment said: “We are pleased to be hosting the international launch of Erbitux in this notoriously difficult to treat cancer type. This is the first treatment regimen in 30 years to show a survival benefit and denotes a significant milestone in the advancement of treatment for head and neck cancer.” The EXTREME study demonstrated that patients treated with Erbitux plus chemotherapy experienced the following improvements, compared to chemotherapy alone:1 • Median overall survival increase of nearly 3 months (10.1 vs. 7.4 months; p=0.04), equating to a 20% reduction in the risk of death (HR: 0.80) during the study [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-24T08:51:35-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Gruesome warnings doing their job

Source: www.stuff.co.nz Author: staff Even in today's world with its plethora of information-gathering techniques there is probably no way to say for certain how much influence the use of revolting pictures on cigarette packets is having on the smoking rate, The Nelson Mail said in an editorial on Thursday. One thing is fairly certain, though - the images of gangrenous toes, diseased lungs and other rotting body parts are unlikely to bring about an increase. They have surely made some contribution to the latest statistics, which show a marked drop in the smoking rate, down from 25 percent of New Zealanders two years ago to around 20 percent, or 170,000 fewer smokers. The Health Ministry is right to attribute some of that improvement to the pictures, which at a stroke removed any semblance of sophistication from tobacco packaging, an area manufacturers used to put some effort into. It is doubtful that they can identify much revenue potential in that any more. The point has been further emphasised by a series of discomforting television commercials bravely fronted by mouth cancer sufferer Adrian Pilkington. He too shows the true nature of tobacco addiction in a way that forces smokers to confront the dangers of their habit. These two measures, along with the requirement for the Quitline number to be on every cigarette packet, are undoubtedly having an effect, hard as it is to define. There have after all been a number of restrictions introduced that have made it more difficult to pursue [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-24T08:41:53-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Mouthwash cancer link questioned

Source: www.bupa.co.uk/health_information Author: staff Mouthwashes that contain alcohol should only be available on prescription from a dentist because of a possible link with oral cancer, according to researchers in Australia. Professor Michael McCullough and Dr Camile Farah looked at previous research to see whether using mouthwashes containing alcohol is linked to oral (mouth) cancer. The review highlights the fact that certain mouthwashes contain more alcohol than some alcoholic drinks. Drinking alcohol is one of the main risk factors for oral cancer, along with smoking. Smoking and drinking together increase the risk even further. The researchers recommend that mouthwashes that contain alcohol should only be available on prescription from a dentist, and should only be used for short periods of time to treat specific conditions. However, Dr Nigel Carter, Chief Executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, told the health information team: "The public can continue to use alcohol-containing mouthwashes with the utmost confidence. There is absolutely no proven link with mouth cancer. This is a poor piece of research and has led to unnecessary scaremongering." One of the studies that the researchers looked at showed that mouthwash users were more likely to develop oral cancer, even if they didn't smoke or drink. However, this study was carried out in Latin America where mouthwash isn't routinely used. Those who used it may have been trying to treat problems caused by poor oral hygiene. It may have been this poor hygiene, rather than the mouthwash use, that increased the risk of oral [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-16T13:37:50-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Smoking Behaviors Among Cancer Survivors: An Observational Clinical Study

Source: Journal of Oncology Practice Author:Lola Burke, MSI, Lesley-Ann Miller, PhD, MS, Ayman Saad, MD, Jame Abraham, MD Purpose: Smoking is a well-recognized risk factor for several cancers including cancers of the lung, bladder, and head and neck. Studies have shown that smoking can adversely affect the outcomes of different modalities of cancer treatment. This study examines smoking behaviors among cancer survivors to collect information necessary to create successful smoking cessation interventions. Methods: For this observational clinical study, questionnaires were sent to 1,000 randomly selected patients diagnosed with cancer between 2003 and 2007 in one cancer center. Data were statistically analyzed to determine the likelihood of a patient quitting smoking after being diagnosed with cancer. Results: We received 187 responses from the 1,000 surveys sent (18.7%). Of these, 166 were usable for analysis. The mean age of respondents was 64 (± 13) years. Men were more likely than women to be past smokers (55% of men and 32% of women respectively, P = .003). Fifty-two percent of respondents reported having a history of smoking. However, only 20% of patients reported having been active smokers at the time they were diagnosed with cancer. Furthermore, only 44% of these reported having quit smoking after their diagnosis with cancer. Only 62% of all respondents reported that they had been informed of the dangers of smoking by their health care provider during cancer treatment. Conclusion: In our study sample, less than one half (44%) of smoking cancer patients quit smoking after their cancer diagnosis, and only 62% of smoking cancer patients received smoking cessation counseling from their physicians. Intervention programs are needed to help cancer survivors to quit smoking. Prospective clinical [...]

Webmaster2009-04-07T18:27:23-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Fighting Cancer With Deadly Light

Source: Forbes Magazine Author: Kerry A. Dolan Drugs toxic enough to kill cancer cells are toxic enough to kill healthy ones, too. How can the poison be targeted? One possibility that has long fascinated scientists is to administer a drug that becomes activated only when exposed to radiation. One treatment for the rare skin cancer cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, for example, involves an interaction between a chemical (psoralen) and ultraviolet light. But the trick is not easily applied to internal cancers, and in any event most therapies involving light-activated drugs have been commercial failures. Llew Keltner believes he can succeed where others have faiLED. He is chief executive of Light Sciences Oncology, a firm in Bellevue, Wash. that aims to use tiny light-emitting diodes to activate anticancer drugs. The LEDs are inserted through the skin using a biopsylike needle that goes directly into a tumor. Light Sciences' target, for now, is liver cancer, one of the deadliest and hardest cancers to treat. Most liver tumors can't be removed with conventional surgery because either they are inaccessible or the patient is too sick to go under the knife. The treatment starts with the injection of a photosensitive chemical derived from chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants and algae that help them feed off sunlight. By itself the chemical is close to harmless. Exposed to red light, the molecule transfers energy to an oxygen molecule (O2), splitting it into singlet oxygen, which is unstable and causes damage to the tumor as well as to [...]

Webmaster2009-01-15T12:57:42-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Chemopreventive agents in black raspberries identified

Source: news.biocompare.com Author: staff A study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, identifies components of black raspberries with chemopreventive potential. Researchers at the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center found that anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids in black raspberries, inhibited growth and stimulated apoptosis in the esophagus of rats treated with an esophageal carcinogen. "Our data provide strong evidence that anthocyanins are important for cancer prevention," said the study's lead author, Gary D. Stoner, Ph.D., a professor in the department of internal medicine at Ohio State University. Stoner and his team of researchers fed rats an anthocyanin-rich extract of black raspberries and found that the extract was nearly as effective in preventing esophageal cancer in rats as whole black raspberries containing the same concentration of anthocyanins. This study demonstrates the importance of anthocyanins as preventive agents in black raspberries and validated similar in vitro findings. It is among the first to look at the correlation between anthocyanins and cancer prevention in vivo. Stoner and his colleagues have conducted clinical trials using whole berry powder, which has yielded some promising results, but required patients to take up to 60 grams of powder a day. "Now that we know the anthocyanins in berries are almost as active as whole berries themselves, we hope to be able to prevent cancer in humans using a standardized mixture of anthocyanins," said Stoner. "The goal is to potentially replace whole berry powder with its active components and then figure [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-01-15T08:29:19-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|