August 2009 – Page 4 – Oral Cancer News

Reference gene selection for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma gene expression studies

Source: 7thspace.com Author: Benjamin Lallemant et al. It is no longer adequate to choose reference genes blindly. We present the first study that defines the suitability of 12 housekeeping genes commonly used in cancer studies (ACT, ALAS, B2M, GAPDH, HMBS, HPRT, KALPHA, RPS18, RPL27, RPS29 , SHAD and TBP) for the normalization of quantitative expression data in the field of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Results: Raw expression levels were measured by RT-qPCR in HNSCC and normal matched mucosa of 46 patients. We analyzed the expression stabilities using geNorm and NormFinder and compared the expression levels between subgroups. In HNSCC and/or normal mucosa, the four best normalization genes were ALAS, GAPDH, RPS18 and SHAD and the most stable combination of two genes was GAPDH-SHAD. We recommend using KALPHA-TBP for the study of T1-T2 tumors, RPL27-SHAD for T3-T4 tumors, KALPHA-SHAD for N0 tumors, and ALAS-TBP for N+ tumors. ACT, B2M, GAPDH, HMBS, HPRT, KALPHA, RPS18, RPS29 and TBP were slightly misregulated (<1.7-fold) between tumor and normal mucosa but can be used for normalization, depending on the resolution required for the assay. Conclusions: In the field of HNSCC, this study will guide researchers in selecting the most appropriate reference genes from among 12 potentially suitable housekeeping genes, depending on the specific setting of their experiments. Authors: Benjamin Lallemant, Alexandre Evrard, Christophe Combescure, Heliette Chapuis, Guillaume Chambon, Caroline Raynal, Christophe Reynaud, Omar Sabra, Dominique Joubert, Frederic Hollande, Jean-Gabriel Lallemant, Serge Lumbroso, Jean-Paul Brouillet

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-05T04:54:33-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Packing a heavier warning

Source: www.washingtonpost.com Author: Ranit Mishori Coming soon to the lives of American smokers: cigarette labels that go far beyond a simple warning. Imagine gruesome color photographs showing a mouth riddled with cancer, lungs blackened, a foot rotten with gangrene. If the images sound sickening, well, that's the point. Under a law signed by President Obama on June 22 -- the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act -- tobacco companies will be required to cover 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with color graphics showing what happens when you smoke and bold, specific labels saying such things as: "WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease." "WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children." "WARNING: Smoking can kill you." The first U.S.-mandated label in 1965 tentatively suggested "Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." Although the language changed over time, critics have long dismissed U.S. labeling as anemic and ineffective. Indeed, the inspiration for the new labeling standards comes from abroad. Canada started the trend in 2000 with a label that showed a picture of mouth cancer. "It's the one that smokers remember more than anything else. Even after nine years," says David Hammond, a researcher from the Department of Health Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Since then, he says, more than two dozen countries have picked up on the idea. A sampling of how explicit the labels can be: Malaysia's cigarette packs bear a photo of a diseased lung; some in Brazil show [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-05T04:48:03-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Viral infection may explain racial differences in oral cancer death rates

Source: nytimes.com Author: Roni Caryn Rabin African-American patients with head and neck cancers die earlier than whites, and researchers say they have made a breakthrough in understanding the underlying reasons for the racial gap. After scientists at the University of Maryland noticed that whites treated at their hospital for squamous cell head and neck cancers lived more than twice as long as black patients who received the same care at their hospital, they took a closer look. Further analysis revealed that the gap was almost entirely due to differences in survival among patients with cancer of the throat and tonsils, or oropharyngeal cancer. The scientists were also involved in analyzing specimens of head and neck tumors taken from participants in a treatment trial called the TAX 324 study, to see how many tumors were linked to the human papillomavirus, the same HPV-16 virus that has been linked to cervical cancer. The results were striking: they found that patients whose tumors were HPV-positive did much better after treatment than patients who were negative for the virus. Yet while half of the throat cancer patients had HPV-positive tumors, 98 percent of the positive tumors were from white patients, while a vast majority of black patients had HPV-negative tumors. “There was no difference in the survival between black and white patients in the TAX 324 trials, if you subtracted out the HPV-positive patients,” said Dr. Kevin Cullen, the senior author of a paper published online by the journal Cancer Prevention Research. White patients [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-01T14:24:03-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Mouth cancer from HPV virus reaches all-time high

Source: www.digitaljournal.com Author: staff The British Dental Health Foundation is insisting that the government include boys among the recipients of the HPV vaccinations. The foundation cites the record high in mouth cancer, affecting more men than women. Mouth cancer is at an all-time high in the United Kingdom, and one of the likeliest culprits for the dangerous surge is the sexually-transmitted HPV virus. Additionally, mouth cancer affects more men than women - and these statistics are driving the British Dental Health Foundation to question the UK government on including boys among the recipients of the HPV vaccination that is currently administered only to girls. "The cancer virus is transmitted through oral sex, and is thought to contribute to the doubling of mouth cancers." Dentistry Magazine reported on Friday. HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted virus - and one of the most dangerous, as it exists in its hosts without symptoms for years, and many strains of HPV progress into full-blown cancers of the cervix, mouth, anus, vagina, and penis. The British Dental Health Foundation is responding to a large-scale study of 46,000 mouth cancer cases in the United States. The study found that the number of deaths from sexually-transmitted HPV virus has increased by 33 percent over the past 30 years - and is now at its highest point. "It is admirable that the government is taking such positive steps to reduce the number of cervical cancer cases for the women of the future but, with mouth cancer killing more [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-01T14:18:34-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|