April 2010 – Page 5 – Oral Cancer News

Smoking-attributable cancer mortality in California, 1979–2005

Source: Tob Control 2010;19:i62-i67 doi:10.1136 Author: David W Cowling1, Juan Yang2 Background: The adult smoking prevalence has declined more in California than the rest of the US in the past 2 decades. Further, California has faster declines in cancer mortality, lung cancer incidence and heart disease mortality. However, no study has examined smoking-related cancer mortality between California and the rest of the US. Methods: The smoking-attributable cancer mortality rate (SACMR) from 1979 to 2005 in California and the rest of the US are calculated among men and women 35 years of age or older using the Joinpoint regression model to calculate the SACMR annual percentage change. The SACMR is the sum of the smoking-attributable death rates of 10 smoking-attributable cancers. Results: The SACMR has declined more in California (25.7%) than the rest of the US (8.9%) from 1979 to 2005. California men had a lower SACMR than the rest of the US over the entire study period, with the difference tripling from 7.4% in 1979 to 23.9% in 2005. The difference of female SACMR between California and the rest of the US went from 17.9% higher in 1979 to 13.4% lower in 2005. Conclusions: California's SACMR decrease started 7 years earlier than the rest of the US (1984 vs 1991), and California experienced an accelerated decline of SACMR compared to the rest of the US overall and among men and women from 1979 to 2005. Although the SACMR started declining before the creation of the California Department of Public Health, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-11T05:24:21-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Sylvester surgeons perform first removal of throat cancer in south Florida using surgical robot

Source: www.healthcanal.com Author: staff Surgeons from the Department of Otolaryngology at UHealth – the University of Miami Health System have performed the first removal of throat cancer in South Florida using a surgical robot. The operation was performed March 22nd at the University of Miami Hospital by Francisco Civantos, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology and member of the Head and Neck Cancer Site Disease Group at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Giovana Thomas, M.D., associate professor of otolaryngology and member of the Head and Neck Cancer Site Disease Group at Sylvester. They were accompanied by Raymond J. Leveillee, M.D., professor of urology, who is an experienced urologic robotic surgeon. Traditional surgery for various head and neck cancers requires large incisions – extending from the lip, across the chin and to the neck before entering the mouth or throat. Numerous times surgeons need to cut through the lower jaw and move aside vital nerves to gain access to the back of the mouth and throat. By using the da Vinci® Surgical System, surgeons insert the slender instruments into the mouth to reach the base of the tongue, tonsils, and throat. "As a surgeon," says Civantos, "using a surgical robot allows for greater precision and dexterity to remove cancerous tumors from tight spaces in the mouth and throat." The University of Miami Hospital's da Vinci® System consists of robotic arms that replicate a surgeon's motions. Throughout a robot-assisted surgery, patients are positioned as they would be during laparoscopic surgery, with surgical team [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-10T10:28:38-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Small atypical cervical nodes detected on sonography in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

Source: Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine Author: Staff Probability of Metastasis Heung Cheol Kim, MD, Dae Young Yoon, MD, Suk Ki Chang, MD, Heon Han, MD, So Jung Oh, MD,Jin Hwan Kim, MD, Young-Soo Rho, MD, Hwoe Young Ahn, MD, Keon Ha Kim, MD andYoon Cheol Shin, MD Department of Radiology, Kangwon National University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea (H.C.K., H.H.); Department of Radiology, Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Chuncheon, Korea (H.C.K.); Departments of Radiology (D.Y.Y., S.K.C.) and Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery (S.J.O., J.H.K., Y.-S.R., H.Y.A.), Ilsong Memorial Institute of Head and Neck Cancer, and Department of Thoracic Surgery (Y.C.S.), Kangdong Seong-Sim Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea; and Department of Radiology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea (K.H.K.). Address correspondence to Dae Young Yoon, MD, Department of Radiology, Ilsong Memorial Institute of Head and Neck Cancer, Kangdong Seong-Sim Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, 445 Gil-dong, Kangdong-gu, Seoul 134-701, Korea. E-mail: [email protected] Objective. The purpose of this study was to assess the probability of metastasis of small atypical cervical lymph nodes detected on sonography in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the head and neck. Methods. We reviewed, retrospectively and blindly, sonographic findings of 148 patients (118 men and30 women; mean age, 58.2 years) who underwent curative neck dissection. Each lymph node was classified by using a 4-point scale: 1, definitely benign; 2, indeterminate (small [short-axis diameter <10 mm for levels I and II and <7 mm for levels III–VI] atypical node); 3, definitely metastatic; and [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-10T10:22:24-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Chip checks for oral cancer. Is this the beginning of an accurate lost cost alternative?

Source: Rice University Author: Mike Williams Rice's nano-bio-chip effective in pilot study to detect premalignancies The gentle touch of a lesion on the tongue or cheek with a brush can help detect oral cancer with success rates comparable to more invasive techniques, according to preliminary studies by researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas Health Science Centers at Houston and San Antonio and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The test that uses Rice's diagnostic nano-bio-chip was found to be 97 percent "sensitive" and 93 percent specific in detecting which patients had malignant or premalignant lesions, results that compared well with traditional tests. The study appeared online in the journal Cancer Prevention Research. "One of the key discoveries in this paper is to show that the miniaturized, noninvasive approach produces about the same result as the pathologists do," said John McDevitt, the Brown-Wiess Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice. His lab developed the novel nano-bio-chip technology at the university's BioScience Research Collaborative. Oral cancer afflicts more than 300,000 people a year, including 35,000 in the United States alone. The five-year survival rate is 60 percent, but if cancer is detected early, that rate rises to 90 percent. McDevitt and his team are working to create an inexpensive chip that can differentiate premalignancies from the 95 percent of lesions that will not become cancerous. The minimally invasive technique would deliver results in 15 minutes instead of several days, as lab-based diagnostics do now; and instead of an invasive, [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-19T22:25:12-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Limited mouth opening after primary treatments for head and neck cancer

Source: Stanford University Author: Weber, S Dommerich, HW Pau, and B Kramp OBJECTIVES: Patients after surgery and radiation/chemoradiation for treatment of head and neck cancer often suffer from oral complications. These problems may be caused by surgery and radiation. Patients complain, for example, of swallowing problems and limited mouth opening (trismus). METHODS: The maximal interincisal mouth opening (MIO) was measured in patients treated with surgery and radiation/chemoradiation for head and neck cancer at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Rostock. These patients also completed a 20-item questionnaire concerning nutritional, sensual, and speech disorders and pain. RESULTS: One hundred one patients (16 female and 85 male) returned the questionnaire and were included in the study. About 50% of the patients had a limited mouth opening (<36 mm); patients with oropharyngeal cancer had a significant higher risk for trismus (p = .024) than patients with other head and neck cancers, especially compared to patients with laryngeal cancer (p = .013). The questionnaire showed that especially patients with oral cancer report about problems with opening the mouth (73%), eating (65%), drinking (73%), xerostomia (92%), speech disorders (68%), and voice (62%). Patients with laryngeal cancer only reported about problems with xerostomia (62%), speech (83%), and voice (90%), similar to patients with pharyngeal cancer. CONCLUSIONS: About half of the patients who underwent primary treatment for oral and oropharyngeal cancer developed trismus and reported about problems with opening the mouth, eating, drinking, dry mouth, voice, and speech. Trismus has a negative impact on quality [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-19T22:25:48-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Diagnostic delay broadly associated with more advanced stage oral cancer.

Source: Evid Based Dent, January 1, 2010; 11(1): 24 Author: I Al-Dakkak Data sources: Medline, Embase, ISI Proceedings and the reference lists of relevant articles were used to find relevant studies. Study selection: Studies were included if: they presented original data from observational studies; included patients with a confirmed pathological diagnosis of oral or oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma; the outcome of interest was clearly defined as disease stage (TNM classification); the exposure of interest was total diagnostic delay, defined as the period between the patient noticing either the first sign or symptom and definitive diagnosis (data were collected from interviews using a standardised questionnaire and medical records); provided relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) or provided enough data to allow calculation of these figures. Data extraction and synthesis: Quality assessment was undertaken independently by two reviewers and followed the recommendations of the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE). Meta-analysis was conducted using fixed and random-effects models. Results: Nine studies carried out in nine different countries met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. The fixed-effects pooled relative risk (RR) of advanced stages of oropharyngeal cancer when diagnostic delay is present was 1.32 (95% CI, 1.07-1.62). This association was stronger when the analysis was restricted to oral cancer (pooled RR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.09-1.99) and when the delay was longer than 1 month (pooled RR, 1.69; 95% CI, 1.26-2.77). Conclusions: The probability for people with delayed diagnosis to present with an advanced-stage tumour at diagnosis was [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-06T11:28:54-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Docetaxel suppresses invasiveness of head and neck cancer cells in vitro

Source: Cancer Sci, February 22, 2010 Author: Y Kogashiwa et al. The combination of docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil significantly enhances the survival of head and neck cancer patients compared to cisplatin and fluorouracil. We hypothesized that docetaxel may affect invasiveness of the head and neck cancer cells in addition to its tumor-killing effect. Two different head and neck cancer cell lines (HEp-2 and Ca9-22) were treated with docetaxel at IC(10) and IC(50) concentrations. Cell migration and invasive growth was evaluated by wound healing assay and three-dimensional (3D) culture of multicellular tumor spheroids, respectively. Expression levels of possible downstream effectors for cell migration/invasiveness were measured by immunoblotting in conditions with or without docetaxel. Docetaxel, but not cisplatin, suppressed filopodia formation compared with no treatment (control) condition. Consistent with this, docetaxel suppressed two-dimensional (2D) cell migration and 3D cell invasion compared with control or cisplatin. Only docetaxel treated cells exhibited thick tubulin bundle and had lower activity of Cdc42, a member of the Rho family of small GTPases. In conclusion, Docetaxel treatment suppressed migration and invasiveness of head and neck cancer cells in vitro, which is likely to be mediated by regulating Cdc42 activity. Authors: Y Kogashiwa, H Sakurai, T Kimura, and N Kohno Authors' affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Kyorin University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-06T11:22:56-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

As cigarette sales dip, new products raise concerns

Source: www.atomiurl.com Author: staff If he were conceived today, there might not be just a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He might also have, tucked into his pocket, a cellphone-size container holding a dozen pouches of snus. It rhymes with “goose,” (cynics might say “noose”), and is a Swedish type of smokeless tobacco that’s not your grandfather’s dip or chew. Snus comes in teabag-like pouches that a user sticks between the upper lip and gum, leaves there for up to 30 minutes and discards without spitting. As no-smoking laws sweep the nation and cigarette sales continue to fall, big Tobacco is alarming the public health community by devising other ways to try to make tobacco appealing. with smokeless products representing the only booming part of the U.S. tobacco market, snus is an effort to boost sales with a product that — unlike most smokeless ones — doesn’t require users to spit out the residue. Snus also represents something more: an attempt to move smokeless tobacco beyond stereotypical users such as baseball players and rodeo cowboys, and into offices or restaurants where people want a nicotine fix but can’t light up. “This is a growth strategy for us,” says Bill Phelps, spokesman for Philip Morris USA, the nation’s biggest tobacco company and maker of Marlboro, the top-selling cigarette. In Dallas this month, Philip Morris is launching its first smokeless product with a cigarette brand name: Marlboro Snus. R.J. Reynolds, second in U.S. tobacco sales, is expanding tests of its Camel Snus [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-05T13:08:02-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Nano-bio-chip sensor platform for examination of oral exfoliative cytology

Source: Cancer Prevention Research 3(4); 518-28, March 23, 2010 Authors: SE Weigum et al. Oral cancer is a deadly and disfiguring disease that could greatly benefit from new diagnostic approaches enabling early detection. In this pilot study, we describe a nano-bio-chip (NBC) sensor technique for analysis of oral cancer biomarkers in exfoliative cytology specimens, targeting both biochemical and morphologic changes associated with early oral tumorigenesis. Here, oral lesions from 41 dental patients, along with normal epithelium from 11 healthy volunteers, were sampled using a noninvasive brush biopsy technique. Specimens were enriched, immunolabeled, and imaged in the NBC sensor according to previously established assays for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) biomarker and cytomorphometry. A total of 51 measurement parameters were extracted using custom image analysis macros, including EGFR labeling intensity, cell and nuclear size, and the nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio. Four key parameters were significantly elevated in both dysplastic and malignant lesions relative to healthy oral epithelium, including the nuclear area and diameter (P

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-04T09:12:06-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Socio-economic factors and stage at presentation of head and neck cancer patients in Ottawa, Canada: A logistic regression analysis

Source: Oral Oncol, March 20, 2010 Authors: S Johnson et al. To determine if socio-economic status (SES) affects the stage at presentation of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients in Ottawa, Canada. To determine if the method of diagnosis affects the stage at presentation in these patients. We obtained data on SES, method of diagnosis, and stage at presentation for patients presenting to the head and neck cancer clinic at The Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Centre (TORCC). We performed a logistic regression analysis using stage at presentation as the dependent variable. We found no statistically significant association between average family income (by postal code) and stage at presentation. We found that oral cancers presented at a later stage compared with other HNCs but that who made the diagnosis was an important factor. Oral cancers diagnosed by a dentist had 3.44 times the odds of being at a later stage than other HNCs (CI 1.01-11.96), but oral cancers diagnosed by other means had 11.42 times the odds of being at a later stage than other HNCs. We found that male patients presented at a later stage than female patients (OR 2.62, CI 1.03-6.63). Finally, former smokers had about 1/3 the odds of presenting at a later stage than current smokers (OR 0.33, CI 0.13-0.84) although nonsmokers were not significantly less likely than current smokers to present later (OR 0.47, CI 0.17-1.32). We found no evidence that in Ottawa, Canada patients of a lower SES with HNC presented at an different stage [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-04T09:02:33-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|