May 2011 – Oral Cancer News

With HPV-related head and neck cancers rising, focus on treatment and vaccination

Source: blogs.wsj.com/health Author: Laura Landro A form of head and neck cancer associated with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus is on the rise, especially in men, the WSJ reports. Fast-rising rates of oropharyngeal cancer — tumors in the tonsil and back-of-the-tongue area — have been linked to changes in sexual behavior that include the increased practice of oral sex and a greater number of sexual partners. But HPV-positive cancer has also been reported in individuals who report few or no sexual partners. It may also be possible for the virus to be transmitted to an infant via an infected mother’s birth canal. An HPV vaccine is routinely recommended for girls because the virus can cause cervical cancer. The rise in HPV-positive head and neck cancers is leading to a new focus both on treatment of the disease, and whether recommending routine vaccination for boys could prevent oral infections and cancers. (A CDC advisory panel said in 2009 that it was fine for boys to get the vaccine, but recommended against routine administration.) Eric Genden, chief of head and neck oncology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, tells the Health Blog that when treated appropriately, patients with HPV-positive cancers have an 85% to 90% disease-free survival rate over five years. By contrast, patients with HPV-negative head and neck cancers, which are often associated with smoking and drinking, typically have more advanced disease when the cancer is detected and face a five-year survival rate of only 25% to 40%, Genden says. HPV-induced head [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-31T14:23:46-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Tobacco companies face packaging dispute in Australia

Source: www.thirdage.com Author: Caitlin Bronson The Australian tobacco industry is fighting to retain their rights to advertise on their own packaging in response to legislation slated to be introduced in Parliament in July. The new law would allow the Australian government to replace the currently bright packaging of cigarette packs with a uniform olive green color, along with health warnings and full-color images of the consequences of smoking. The brand name of the cigarette would appear in small print underneath the depictions of things like mouth cancer or gangrenous toes. The logic behind the dull and disturbing packaging is simple—if smoking is presented in an unattractive light, more Australians will quit smoking and less young people will pick up the habit. However, the country does not have a precedent to look to in this matter, as none other has tried it. And the tobacco industry is warning against it. The Associated Press reports that the uniform packaging required by the hypothetical law would be easy to counterfeit, allowing for illegal Asian tobacco, on which tax is not paid, to enter the Australian market. To compete against the illegal product, companies like British American Tobacco Australia Ltd. (BATA) have said they would cut prices for cigarettes. This could backfire on the government, causing more Australians to take up the habit. “If they keep pushing us down this path with this experimental piece of legislation, unfortunately it’s going to end up in court, and it’s likely to cost millions of dollars, and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-31T14:18:34-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Head and Neck Cancers Linked to HPV are on the Rise

Source: The Wall Street Journal A form of head and neck cancer associated with the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus is on the rise, especially in men, the WSJ reports. Fast-rising rates of oropharyngeal cancer — tumors in the tonsil and back-of-the-tongue area — have been linked to changes in sexual behavior that include the increased practice of oral sex and a greater number of sexual partners. But HPV-positive cancer has also been reported in individuals who report few or no sexual partners. It may also be possible for the virus to be transmitted to an infant via an infected mother’s birth canal. An HPV vaccine is routinely recommended for girls because the virus can cause cervical cancer. The rise in HPV-positive head and neck cancers is leading to a new focus both on treatment of the disease, and whether recommending routine vaccination for boys could prevent oral infections and cancers. (A CDC advisory panel said in 2009 that it was fine for boys to get the vaccine, but recommended against routine administration.) Eric Genden, chief of head and neck oncology at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, tells the Health Blog that when treated appropriately, patients with HPV-positive cancers have an 85% to 90% disease-free survival rate over five years. By contrast, patients with HPV-negative head and neck cancers, which are often associated with smoking and drinking, typically have more advanced disease when the cancer is detected and face a five-year survival rate of only 25% to 40%, Genden says. HPV-induced head [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-31T11:00:57-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Obama’s choice to lead Joint Chiefs is a Head and Neck Cancer Survivor.

Source: The Washington Post Crooning is not among the qualities that pushed Dempsey to the top of Obama’s list in searching for a successor to Adm. Mike Mullen, whose term as Joint Chiefs chairman began under President George W. Bush and ends Sept. 30. But Dempsey’s singing singles him out in a field of Army generals who are usually less publicly playful, and more rigidly aligned with a military culture of caution. Last Friday, in front of news cameras and a gathering for kids and adults who have lost fathers, mothers and other relatives in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Dempsey sang a bit of “New York, New York,” and also “The Unicorn” children’s song: “... there were green alligators, and long-neck geese, some humpty-back camels and some chimpanzees ...” And he uses social media sites to push the music theme. In a recent Facebook post he mentioned that he likes to use videos set to music to reinforce the message in his Army presentations, and he asked younger soldiers to suggest selections. Among the responses: Metallica, AC/DC and endorsement of his recent use of a song by the group Disturbed. At age 59, with 36 years of Army service after graduating from West Point, Dempsey comes across as energetic and athletic. Last year he underwent treatment for what his spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Alayne Conway, said Sunday was “head and neck cancer that presented itself as a tumor on the base of his tongue.” She said his doctors [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-31T09:25:59-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer clip on tobacco pouch

Source: www.telegraphindia.com Author: staff Packets of chewing tobacco sold across India after December 1, 2011 will have to show graphic images portraying the disfiguring effects of oral cancer, but cigarette and bidi packets may show milder pictures, the Union health ministry said today. The health ministry has notified two new sets of pictorial warnings — harsher images for packets of chewing tobacco — that will replace the existing pictures, scorpions on chewed tobacco products, and diseased lungs on cigarette and bidi packets. Cancer and public health specialists have welcomed the new images, but pointed out that the choice of images given to manufacturers of smoking tobacco will allow them to use a milder warning of a man with diseased lungs rather than of mouth cancer. “I’m not happy at all at the choice of pictures for smoking tobacco products,” said Pankaj Chaturvedi, an associate professor of head and neck cancer surgery at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. “Pictorial warnings need to have a strong deterrence effect that impacts people — the pictures for chewing tobacco are likely to have such an effect, but the pictures for smoking tobacco don’t,” he said. “The new four pictures for chewing tobacco are very similar and graphically depict the consequences of mouth cancer,” said Monika Arora, the head of health promotion and tobacco control at the Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi. But three of the four images for smoking tobacco packets show a male with lungs in different stages of disease, while [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-29T05:51:08-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Philip Morris Int’l purchases license to nicotine system

Source: Associated Press Cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc. has purchased the rights to a technology that lets users inhale nicotine without smoking. The world's largest nongovernmental cigarette seller told The Associated Press on Thursday it has bought the patent for an aerosol nicotine-delivery system developed by Jed Rose, director of the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke University in Durham, N.C. The school does not have a role in Rose's agreement with the company and won't receive any money. Terms were not disclosed. "By avoiding the burning process altogether, finding a way of giving smokers nicotine to inhale but without those toxic substances that we can reduce the death and disease associated with smoking," said Rose, who led the initial studies in the early 1980s that helped pave the way for commercial nicotine patches as a smoking cessation treatment. "Hopefully it's a wave of the future that inhaling combusted, burning tobacco will someday be a thing of the past." Rose said the next step is for Philip Morris International, with offices in New York and Lausanne, Switzerland, to develop a commercial product using the technology. The system differs from current medicinal nicotine inhalers available on the market as stop-smoking aids because it delivers nicotine more rapidly to mimic the nicotine "hit" a cigarette provides smokers. "The other methods of delivering nicotine fall short of providing smokers with the satisfaction that they crave," Rose said. The move is an "important step in our efforts to develop products [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-27T10:56:57-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Study findings may change surgical practice

Source: www.digitaljournal.com Author: press release Currently, about 30 per cent of patients who receive oral surgery have their cancer recur. But a new, Canada-wide surgical trial using a new approach to remove tumours and pre-cancerous cells from the mouths of those diagnosed with early-stage oral cancer offers new hope for patients. The Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) announces the launch of a $4.7 million Pan-Canadian Phase III clinical trial aimed at improving outcomes for patients undergoing surgery for oral squamous cell cancers. The Canadian Optically Guided Approach for Oral Lesions Surgical Trial (The COOLS Study) has the potential to revolutionize clinical practice here and around the world for this kind of cancer. "Our investment in this promising study is our response to a serious clinical concern expressed by head and neck surgeons across Canada and it has the potential to change surgical practices for cancer of the mouth nationally and internationally," said Dr. Victor Ling, TFRI President and Scientific Director. Using a new surgical approach guided by an existing hand-held light tool, the surgeons, pathologists, and scientists involved in this nine-centre study will determine whether recurrence is reduced when they shift the surgical field for the removal of tumours or pre-cancerous cells in the mouth. The surgeons will use fluorescence visualization (FV) or "blue light" provided by the optical aid rather than traditional white light to determine the tissue to be removed. Under the blue light, normal tissue generates a fluorescence which is absent in tumour or pre-cancerous tissue. The [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-27T05:26:01-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Blue light tool could save lives of patients suffering from oral cancer

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress Author: Camille Bains, The Canadian Press A device that emits a blue light is giving patients undergoing surgery for oral cancer a fighting chance at survival and Canada is at the forefront of research that could have a global impact, researchers say. Doctors and scientists in nine Canadian cities began testing the tool last September as part of a five-year study on 400 patients who are suffering from cancer that has afflicted their tongue or other parts of the mouth. The hand-held fluorescence visualization tool allows surgeons to see cancer cells that can't be detected by conventional white light so they can remove the affected tissue and prevent the disease from recurring. Balvir Dhadda, 47, thought she'd been given a death sentence when she was diagnosed with the deadly disease four years ago after developing a sore underneath the left side of her tongue. "When I got diagnosed, I thought `That's it.'" But Dhadda credits the blue light device for saving her life. "This was the tool used on me, and the rest is history," Dhadda said Thursday. The tool ensured doctors removed only the tissue that was cancerous, rather than the usual practice of removing parts that might potentially be. "I think it was a major factor in the time it took me to recover afterwards," said Dhadda, of Surrey, B.C. Miriam Rosin, the principle investigator of the study, said the blue-light tool developed at the BC Cancer Agency had been used to detect lung, cervical and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-27T05:25:36-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Pan-Canadian Surgical Study Offers New Hope for Patients With Early-Stage Oral Cancer

Source: Canada NewsWire VANCOUVER, May 26, 2011 /CNW/ - Currently, about 30 per cent of patients who receive oral surgery have their cancer recur. But a new, Canada-wide surgical trial using a new approach to remove tumours and pre-cancerous cells from the mouths of those diagnosed with early-stage oral cancer offers new hope for patients. The Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) announces the launch of a $4.7 million Pan-Canadian Phase III clinical trial aimed at improving outcomes for patients undergoing surgery for oral squamous cell cancers. The Canadian Optically Guided Approach for Oral Lesions Surgical Trial (The COOLS Study) has the potential to revolutionize clinical practice here and around the world for this kind of cancer. "Our investment in this promising study is our response to a serious clinical concern expressed by head and neck surgeons across Canada and it has the potential to change surgical practices for cancer of the mouth nationally and internationally," said Dr. Victor Ling, TFRI President and Scientific Director. Using a new surgical approach guided by an existing hand-held light tool, the surgeons, pathologists, and scientists involved in this nine-centre study will determine whether recurrence is reduced when they shift the surgical field for the removal of tumours or pre-cancerous cells in the mouth. The surgeons will use fluorescence visualization (FV) or "blue light" provided by the optical aid rather than traditional white light to determine the tissue to be removed. Under the blue light, normal tissue generates a fluorescence which is absent in tumour [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-26T14:56:04-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

NHL icon Stan Mikita diagnosed with oral cancer

Source: Huliq.com He is considered by Chicago Blackhawks hockey fans to be one of the greatest hockey players of all time, but he now faces his greatest challenge as it was announced Stan Mikita has cancer. The statement was released by the Blackawks organization today. The statement was that Mikita was diagnosed with stage 1 oral cancer. According to Chicago press reports, Mikita was diagnosed with the condition at Loyola Medical Center in downtown Chicago. The report from the team stated that the diagnosis was of early stage tongue cancer. The statement also said that, since the disease was found early, he stands a good chance of responding to treatment. The release also asked that the press not ask the team for further information about Mikita’s condition. The statement was that it was a personal matter between Mikita and his family and his doctors. No further statements about his condition will be released by the team. Stan Mikita was originally from Canada. He eventually came to the United States and played in the early days of the NHL. They played for the Chicago Blackhawks in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was on the team when they beat the Detroit Redwings to win the Stanely Cup in 1961. Mikita played professional hockey throughout the 1970s. He finally retired due to chronic back pain in 1980. He has been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. During his time as a player he was the league MVP twice. He is [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-25T10:41:22-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|