March 2010 – Page 4 – Oral Cancer News

BT Pharma secures EUR 13.1million (USD 17.7 million) in capital funding and changes its name to Genticel

Source: pharmalive.com/News Author: press release BT Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative immunotherapies to prevent cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), announces today that it has raised EUR 13.1 million in additional funding and changed its name to Genticel. AGF Private Equity led the round, which brought in three new investors, IRDI (Institut Régional de Développement Industriel), Amundi Private Equity Funds and InnoBio fund, managed by CDC Entreprises, within FSI France Investment program. Previous investors, including Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP), also took part. To best leverage its unique and broadly applicable therapeutic vaccine platform, Adenylate Cyclase (CyaA), Genticel will focus its efforts on the prevention of cervical cancer in HPV infected women. A phase I clinical trial of Genticel's lead therapeutic HPV vaccine, ProCervix, is scheduled for the second quarter of 2010. This bivalent product, which carries antigens originating from both HPV16 and HPV18, should offer a curative vaccine solution that will complement current prophylactic vaccines. "This level of support from investors, particularly in the current economic environment, is extremely encouraging and confirms the potential of our drug candidates and our business plan," said Dr Benedikt Timmerman, CEO at Genticel. "The new funding will not only enable us to conduct our 'first-in-man' clinical trial with the CyaA technology but also allow the company to prepare for phase II in the same indication and prepare pipeline products up to the development stage." Dr Alain Munoz, MD, representative of AGF Private Equity, who has joined the Supervisory Board of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-09T21:40:51-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer survivor tells his experience with smokeless tobacco

Source: Lifestyles Author: Nicole Printz Just like the trucks on every corner in Abilene, rings on back jean pockets are a common sight. Gruen Von Behrens, who visited Abilene High School on Wednesday, knows all about smokeless tobacco. He began with snuff at 13 years old. He asked the packed high school auditorium if the students knew someone who smoked cigarettes. A sea of hands rose at the question, with almost the same number rising for his next question – did they know someone who used smokeless tobacco? “I think about half our school smokes or uses smokeless tobacco,” Dynae Whiteley, a junior, said. “I mean, not to get anyone in trouble or anything.” “I have friends and relatives that use tobacco,” said senior Matt Bowers. “I think smokeless tobacco is safer because the use of cigarettes affects more people through second-hand smoke. Smokeless tobacco only affects that person.” Collin Sexton, a sophomore, also thought smokeless tobacco would be safer than smoking. Dynae Whiteley and Paige Piper, both juniors, thought all tobacco was “equally bad.” According to the Communities That Care 2009 survey, 23.1 percent of Dickinson County students sixth through 12th grade have used smokeless tobacco, and 27.4 percent had smoked a cigarette. Almost half of all seniors in Dickinson County had smoked a cigarette at least once. This statistics are almost double the state average. Von Behrens, one of the eight members of the National Spit Tobacco Education Program’s speakers bureau, continued his life story. He said “not [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-03-08T10:41:41-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Mayo oral cancer study shows full tumor genome

Source: insciences.org Author: press release Mayo Clinic researchers along with collaborators from Life Technologies are reporting on the application of a new approach for sequencing RNA to study cancer tumors. Their findings from a proof-of-principle study on oral carcinomas appear in the current issue of PLoS One, the online science journal. To explore the advantages of massively parallel sequencing of genomic transcripts (RNA), the researchers used a novel, strand-specific sequencing method using matched tumors and normal tissues of three patients with the specific cancer. They also analyzed the genomic DNA from one of the tumor-normal pairs which revealed numerous chromosomal regions of gain and loss in the tumor sample. The key finding of this work was that alterations in gene expression which can arise from a variety of genomic alterations frequently are driven by losses or gains in large chromosomal regions during tumor development. In addition to the specific tumor findings, this study also demonstrated the value of this RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) method. It will allow researchers to measure strand-specific expression across the entire sample's transcriptome. This technology reveals far more detail about genome-wide transcription than traditional microarrays. "This method allows us to investigate genetic changes at a level that we were never able to see before," says David Smith, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic genomics researcher and corresponding author of the study. "This provides us with much more information about alterations during cancer development that could reveal important therapeutic targets. We can more completely understand the relationship between an individual's genome [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-06T14:16:56-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Viagra, Cialis do more than arouse

Source: www.kptv.com Author: staff More than 30 million men take them for erectile dysfunction, but the drugs marketed to treat male impotence are now being investigated for the treatment of more than a dozen diseases and health problems. Researchers say ED drugs like Viagra could turn out to be as versatile as aspirin. They're the images of happy couples that helped make erectile dysfunction drugs a $3 billion business. But now doctors say those little pills may also save lives. Brian Kumnick is fighting throat cancer. He's been through months of radiation and surgery. “The radiation, it's barbaric,” Kumnick told Ivnahoe. “It's really barbaric, and I've lost my taste buds, for example. I can't taste anything. Water tastes like acid going down." He's part of a clinical trial to see if the ED drug Cialis can cure head and neck cancers. "It'd be really nice to just take a pill that has a pleasant side effect,” Kumnick said. In preliminary studies, doctors at Johns Hopkins say Cialis energized patients' immune systems so their bodies could battle the cancer cells. Next, they'll test to see if the drug also shrinks tumors. "When we looked at the blood of head and neck cancer patients, we could get their immune response to rev up to near normal levels, whereas they were suppressed maybe 75 percent, sometimes even 80 percent,” Joseph Califano, M.D., professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., told Ivanhoe. From fighting cancer, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-06T07:32:55-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Avoid incense

Source: featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com Author: Julie Deardorff You know you're in a yoga or massage studio when the smell of Nag Champa incense--a blend of patchouli and sandalwood--permeates the air. But you may not want to breathe too deep. Incense contains potent pollutants, notably benzene, toluene and formaldehyde--known carcinogens found in tobacco smoke, according to the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter. "A study in the journal Cancer linked long-term incense use with a significant increase in cancers of the upper respiratory tract (nose, tongue, mouth and larynx, for instance,) but not lung cancer. Incense also pollutes the air with fine particles that can be inhaled and can contribute to cardiorespiratory disease."

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:48:59-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Transoral robotic surgery showed good oncologic, functional outcomes

Source: Author: Christen Haigh Patients with head and neck cancers treated with transoral robotic surgery — or TORS — had good disease control, disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), according to the findings of a preliminary study presented at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz. “Disease control and survival rates using TORS appeared to be equivalent or near equivalent to those rates reported with chemoradiation, but with TORS, we need better functional outcome,” Eric Genden, MD, chief of the division of head and neck oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, said during the presentation of the results. To determine the role of TORS in the treatment of oropharyngeal cancer, researchers prospectively evaluated patterns of failure, survival and functional outcomes of 25 patients treated with TORS and compared them with that of 12 patients treated with combined chemoradiation. The one-year locoregional control was 95%; distant control was 96%; DFS was 86% and OS was 86%. There was one local failure, one distant failure, one second primary failure and one comorbid death. Patients who received TORS had less acute toxicity two weeks after treatment vs. patients who received chemoradiotherapy. The TORS group had better eating ability than the chemoradiotherapy group (74% vs. 52%) and had improved diet vs. the chemoradiotherapy group (43% vs. 20%). Thus, TORS was associated with a higher overall functional oral intake scale score vs. that of the chemoradiotherapy group (5.3 vs. 3.2). Both groups had a score of 100% for [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:43:24-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Prolonged treatment delay did not affect outcomes in SCCHN

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: Christen Haigh No association was found between diagnosis to treatment interval and tumor control outcomes in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). However, patients with poor Karnofsky performance status, black patients and patients treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy all had prolonged diagnosis to treatment interval. Jimmy J. Caudell Jr., MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Mississippi, Jackson, presented the findings at the Multidisciplinary Head & Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz. Prolonged treatment delay from the time of diagnosis may often occur in patients with locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer due to social, dental, nutritional and radiotherapy planning procedures that need to be resolved prior to treatment initiation, according to researchers. To assess factors affecting treatment delay, researchers analyzed data from 426 patients with SCCHN treated with radiotherapy from 1995 to 2007 at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The median follow-up was 42 months. The median diagnosis to treatment interval was 34 days. Longer than median diagnosis to treatment interval was associated with treatment off protocol (P=.002), black ethnicity (P=.005), insurance type (P

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:32:43-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Instant screening device is the best defense for detecting deadly oral cancer

Source: worldental.org Author: staff Every year, over 34,000 Americans develop oral cancer. Many die, and many others must undergo surgery that leaves them permanently disfigured. In the March 2010 issue of Esquire magazine, film critic Roger Ebert shared his story about his battle with the oral cancer disease. After multiple surgeries, he lost his lower jaw, along with his ability to speak and eat solid food. Ebert brings publicity to a disease that hasn’t received much. Oral cancer can be a serious diagnosis, mainly because it usually goes undetected until it has reached an advanced stage and has spread throughout the body. People in their 60s who use tobacco and/or alcohol were once thought to be most at risk of getting oral cancer, but new evidence suggests a more disturbing cause. Oral cancer is now linked to the human papillomavirus (HPV), the same virus that causes cervical cancer. This means that oral cancer can be spread via oral sex, which puts sexually active younger adults in a higher-risk category. Dentists are usually the first to diagnose oral cancer, but 75 percent do not check their patients for signs of the disease. What’s more, the early signs of oral cancer are invisible to the naked eye, so even those who look for it may not spot it. Luckily, there is a technology to detect the earliest signs of oral cancer. It’s called the VELscope, and it’s being used in approximately 500 dental practices throughout the United States. Dr. Michael Koczarski of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:22:53-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New technology helps those affected by HPV

Source: news10now.com Autor: Marcie Fraser Scott Vitale certainly does not fit the criteria for the HPV virus which causes warts, and in rare cases, it's found in the throat. Most often, infants get it from their mothers while they pass through the birth canal. Why or how he got the virus, no one knows for sure. "In terms of the voice box areas, the throat, it is not that clear cut. We think there may be some sexual transmission but it's hard to pin point how these patients actually get these papillomas,” said Dr. Stanely Shapshay, Laryngologist. He had symptoms for about a year. He had trouble breathing and he nearly lost his voice. The tumors had obstructed his airway. "Papilloma virus affects the vocal cords and the throat in general and some of our patients like you have seen today have little tumors called papilloma. Papillomas are viral caused tumors that either change the vocal cord function, in terms of the voice or sometimes even breathing,” said Shapshay. Thankfully the tumors were not on his vocal cords. Laryngologist Dr. Stanley Shapshay was able to do tests right in the office with a high tech camera called the Distal Chip Technology. By simply numbing the nasal passage, this flexible scope can be inserted down the throat which provides clear 3D images. "The Distal Chip Technology gives us a beautiful view, a panorama of the throat to be able to see detail we have not seen before,” said Shapshay. Once the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-05T07:13:23-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Racing to addiction: tobacco company auto racing sponsorships

Source: www.docstoc.com Author: Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids staff Auto racing is the number one live spectator sport in the United States, the second most watched sport on TV, and "the hottest, fastest-growing spectator sport in American."1 With disproportionate numbers of youth viewers, auto racing offers prime marketing opportunities to promote products to kids -- and the cigarette and spit tobacco companies have been taking full advantage. Winston, Marlboro, Kool, and Skoal are all prominent brand-name sponsors of racing events and teams. But auto racing could easily thrive without tobacco dollars, and switching to other sponsors would significantly reduce the amount of tobacco marketing that directly reaches and attracts kids. Auto Races are Popular Family Events With Large Youth Audiences Contrary to tobacco industry claims, kids are a big part of both the crowds at auto races and their television viewers. While 12-17 year olds make up less than 11 percent of the total 12+ population, they are almost 14 percent of those who attended NASCAR auto races in 1996 and over 18 percent of those who attended sports car racing. In 1996, more than 25 percent of 1217 years olds, or over 100 million kids, watched auto racing on television.2 The racing industry also aggressively reaches out to kids. Race weekends often include live music, rides, contests, racing-related merchandise sales, and hospitality areas. Beyond the races are NASCAR Thunder stores, featuring a children’s area called NASKids with toddler and youth apparel, the new NASCAR Café family restaurants with racing [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-04T16:42:16-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|