2017 – Page 6 – Oral Cancer News

Teens drink less if they know alcohol causes cancer — but most don’t — study finds

Source: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ Author: Tim Williams, Education Reporter Teens are less likely to drink if they know that alcohol is a major cause of cancer, but most are unaware of the link, a South Australian study has found. More than 2800 school students aged 12-17 were surveyed about their drinking behaviour by Adelaide University and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) researchers. Those aged 14-17 were deterred from drinking if they knew about the link between alcohol and cancer, but only 28 per cent of students were aware of the connection. Parental disapproval was another deterrent, while smoking and approval from friends resulted in higher rates of drinking. Most students had tried alcohol by age 16 and a third drank at least occasionally. Wealthy students were more likely to drink. Cancer Council SA chief executive Lincoln Size said there was clear evidence drinking caused cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx and oesophagus, as well as bowel cancer in men and breast cancer in women. It likely raised the risk of liver cancer and bowel cancer in women too. “Any level of alcohol consumption increases the risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer; the level of risk increases in line with the level of consumption,” he said. “This latest evidence highlights the need to educate young people about the consequences of alcohol consumption and for parents to demonstrate responsible drinking behaviour. “We need to get the message through that what may be considered harmless fun actually has lifelong consequences.” Lead author [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-20T09:05:48-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Plan not to give HPV vaccine to boys causes concern

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-40658791 Date: July 19th, 2017 A decision not to vaccinate boys against a cancer-causing sexually transmitted infection has attracted fierce criticism. Reported cases of human papilloma virus (HPV) - thought to cause about 80% of cervical cancers - have fallen sharply since girls were given the vaccine. But the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) found little evidence to justify treating boys too. Critics said vaccinating boys could help reduce the risk still further. Across the UK, all girls aged 12-13 are offered HPV vaccination as part of the NHS childhood vaccination programme. Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at Public Health England, said: "Evidence from around the world suggests that the risk of HPV infection in males is dramatically reduced by achieving high uptake of the HPV vaccine among girls. "While there are some additional benefits to vaccinating both males and females, the current models indicate that extending the programme to boys in the UK, where the uptake in adolescent girls is consistently high (over 85%), would not represent a good use of NHS resources." This initial recommendation by JCVI will now be subject to a public consultation and a final decision will be made in October. The British Dental Association said it would urge the committee to reconsider the evidence. The chair of the BDA, Mick Armstrong, said: "HPV has emerged as the leading cause of oropharyngeal cancers, so JCVI's unwillingness to expand the vaccination programme to boys is frankly indefensible." Shirley Cramer of the Royal Society [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-19T09:44:49-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Richard Holbrook’s Benefit Concert To Give All Proceeds to The Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., July 13, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Acclaimed cabaret singer Richard Holbrook will be performing two benefit concerts at the Metropolitan Room in New York City on Friday, September 8, 2017 at 7:00pm and Saturday, September 9, 2017 at 4:00pm as a benefit for The Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund which is connected with The Oral Cancer Foundation. Holbrook will be singing Richard Rodgers songs from classic Broadway shows and memorable Hollywood film musicals. "I'm so thrilled and excited to be performing my show as a benefit for the Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund," he states. Holbrook will be accompanied by the fabulous Tom Nelson Trio. The stage 4 oral cancer survivor found a canker sore which led to a cancer diagnosis, spreading from gum to jaw. In September 2013 Holbrook stated, "After the surgery, I couldn't utter a sound. I wrote notes to my family, but they were illegible. I got so frustrated! I now have such empathy for people with conditions that keep them from being able to communicate with the world. One of the most enlightening lessons I learned is how important communication is. As singers, it is all about HOW we communicate through words, sound and storytelling." About Richard Holbrook Born in New York City, Richard taught himself how to sing by listening to the recordings of Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby and by watching their films. He found success as an actor on such hit television series as The Sopranos and Spin [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-17T11:21:09-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Trans oral robotic surgery saves public Australian hospital patients from disfiguring procedure

Source: www.smh.com.au Author: Kate Aubusson The cancerous tumour growing at the back of Brian Hodge's tongue was about as hard-to-reach as cancers get. The 73-year-old was told he'd need radical, invasive surgery to remove the 50¢-sized tumour. His surgeon would make an incision almost from ear-to-ear and split his jaw in two for the 10-12 hour surgery. After five days in intensive care, another three weeks in hospital and four to six months recovery, re-learning how to eat and talk Mr Hodge would have been left with disfiguring scars, and a voice that he may not recognise as his own. "My kids didn't want me to have it," Mr Hodge said. "But I'm not one to throw in the towel ... Then the unbelievable happened," he said. Mr Hodge became one of the first public patients to undergo robotic surgery for head, neck and throat cancer at Nepean Hospital, the state's only hospital offering the service to patients who can't afford private healthcare. Mr Hodge's surgeon, Associate Professor Ronald Chin, performed the trans oral robotic surgery (TORS) by guiding the robot's arm into his patient's open mouth to remove the cancerous tumour. "I went in on Monday morning for the surgery and I was discharged Tuesday night," Mr Hodge said of his surgery performed on June 19. "It's just amazing. Two days compared to six months recovering. "What's got me is that before it was only available to people who could pay the big money. I've worked all my life, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-17T07:29:27-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Smoking Scenes in Movies Have Increased … Why?

Source: www.healthline.com Author: Shawn Radcliffe After several years of decline, tobacco use depicted in movies is on the rise again. Does it matter? Where there’s smoke, there’s … probably a PG-13 rated movie. A new study shows that tobacco incidents depicted in top-grossing movies in the United States are once again on the rise, breaking an earlier decline. This is true despite public health efforts outside theaters to reduce smoking by children and teens. “If the progress that we had seen between 2005 and 2010 had continued, all of the youth-rated films would have been smoke-free in 2015,” said study author Stanton Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine, and director of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. The July 7 study in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) found that the total number of tobacco incidents in top-grossing movies increased 72 percent between 2010 and 2016. It also increased 43 percent in PG-13 movies. Tobacco incidents are defined as use or implied use, by an actor, of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, hookah, smokeless tobacco products, or electronic cigarettes. This increase comes as the number of movies showing tobacco declined — meaning fewer movies account for a greater number of tobacco scenes. In 2016, 41 percent of the top-grossing movies had tobacco incidents, down from 45 percent in 2010. In addition, 26 percent of youth-rated movies had tobacco incidents in 2016, a decline from 31 percent in 2010. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-15T18:00:58-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Improved quality of life for head and neck cancer patients with Nivolumab

Source: www.oncnursingnews.com Author: Jason Harris Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) saw improved or stable quality of life (QOL) scores following treatment with single-agent nivolumab (Opdivo), according to results published in Lancet Oncology.1 In contrast, patients assigned to investigator’s choice of treatment saw clinical meaningful declines, defined as a decrease in ≥10% from baseline, across 8 of 15 (53%) domains on the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire. “The results of CheckMate-141 suggest that nivolumab is the first PD-1 inhibitor, to our knowledge, to show a significant improvement in overall survival, with better tolerability and a quality-of-life benefit, compared with standard therapy for platinum-refractory recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck,” investigators wrote. “In view of the major unmet need in this population and the importance of maintaining or improving quality of life for patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, these data support nivolumab as a new standard of care option in this setting.” Investigators evaluated statistical differences in patient-reported adjusted mean changes from baseline between treatment groups as assessed by the EORTC QLQ-C30, EORTC QLQ-H&N35, and EQ-5D-3L at each time point, and the time to clinically meaningful deterioration per each individual scale’s criteria. Patient assessments were conducted before treatment initiation, at week 9, and then every 6 weeks during the treatment period using the EORTC QLQ-C30, EORTC QLQ-H&N35, and EQ-5D-3L questionnaires. Posttreatment assessments were made at follow-up visits 1 and 2 (35 days give or take 7 days [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-14T10:56:06-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

An artistic representation of cancer

Source: www.vueweekly.com Author: Stephan Boissonneault Obstructed by Jude Griebel // Stephan Boissonneault One of the most terrifying phrases known to our current human existence is “you have cancer.” Those three words can break a person. “I would describe it as a terrible cyclone of information,” says head and neck cancer patient Kimberly Flowers. “You’re surrounded by all these medical teams, all these procedures and appointments, and you’re expected as [a] patient to make the best informed decisions while you’re in a state of emotional trauma. It’s just a whirlwind of confusion.” With their project and exhibition See Me, Hear Me, Heal Me, clinicians, researchers, patients, and artists aim to recreate that initial confusion and the universal experience of head and neck cancer with multiple works of art. “I thought art was the best way to express this because art presents an effective and visceral understanding to the experience,” head researcher of the project Dr. Minn Yoon says. Yoon, being an assistant professor with the School of Dentistry at the University of Alberta, initially started the project by interviewing patients with head and neck cancer. “My research has to do with the oral health of vulnerable populations, and patients with head and neck cancer fall into that category,” Yoon says. “I wanted to get a sense of what these people actually go through and how their lives change after learning they have head and neck cancer.” After an interview with a patient who had undergone surgery to reconstruct her [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-14T08:00:36-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

House Committee Looks to Dilute Tobacco Control Act

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Date: July 12, 2017 Author: Salynn Boyles The U.S. House Appropriations Committee made a move Wednesday to greatly weaken the FDA's authority to regulate tobacco products, including flavored cigars and electronic cigarettes, and health advocacy groups were quick to condemn it. The committee approved a rider to the agriculture funding bill that would exempt certain cigars from FDA's authority and weaken its regulatory oversight over e-cigarettes, little cigars, and hookah tobacco. Prior to the vote, the House committee defeated an amendment by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) to remove language from the bill that will effectively eliminate FDA's authority to review the health hazards of thousands of tobacco products. A second rider would exempt from FDA authority certain cigars, including many that are cheap, flavored and are most likely to appeal to children, said American Lung Association (ALA) President Harold Wimmer. "These dangerous riders were added to this bill for the benefit of the tobacco industry and come at a time when e-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product among kids," Wimmer said in a written press statement. The riders are similar to those passed by the House Appropriations Committee last year, but the language restricting FDA's authority under the Tobacco Control Act was dropped from the final FY2017 bill later in the appropriations process. New language in the FY2018 bill does require the FDA to develop standards for the flavors added to e-cigarettes. ALA spokesperson Erika Sward told MedPage Today that it is not clear if the [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-13T11:02:13-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Personalized cancer vaccines successful in first-stage human trials

Source: http://newatlas.com/cancer-personalized-vaccine-success-trial/50402/ Author: Rich Haridy Date: July 9, 2017 A cancer vaccine is one of the holy grails of modern medical research, but finding a way to stimulate the immune system to specifically target and kill cancer cells has proven to be a difficult task. Now two recent clinical trials that have produced encouraging results in patients with skin cancer are are providing hope for the development of personalized cancer vaccines tailored to individual patient's tumors. Both studies focus on neoantigens, which are mutated molecules found only on the surface of cancer cells. Neoantigens prove to be ideal targets for immunotherapy as they are not present on healthy cells. A vaccine's challenge is to train the body's immune cells, known as T cells, to hunt and kill only those specific tumor cells that hold the target neoantigens. In the first trial, at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, samples of tumors were taken from six patients with melanoma. The patients were identified as having a high risk for recurrence after first having their tumors removed by surgery. For each individual patient the researchers identified up to 20 neoantigens specific to a subject's tumor. Computer algorithms were then utilized to help the researchers select which specific neoantigens would best stimulate the body's T cells. Those neoantigens were then synthesized, mixed with an adjuvant to stimulate immune response, and injected into the individual patients. Four out of the six patients in this first trial displayed no recurrence of their cancer 25 months after vaccination. [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-07-10T09:33:39-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Biotech exec facing death urges: Get the vaccine that prevents his cancer

Source: www.philly.com Author: Michael D. Becker Like most people who pen a new book, Michael D. Becker is eager for publicity. But he has an unusual sense of urgency. A former oncology biotech CEO, Becker has neck cancer. He expects his 49th birthday in November to be his last, if he makes it. What also drives him to get his message out, however, is this: Children today can get a vaccine that prevents the kind of oropharyngeal cancer that is killing him. As he collides with his mortality, Becker wants to share his story and raise awareness about the vaccine, which protects against dangerous strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, the extremely common, sexually transmitted virus that caused his disease. His book, A Walk With Purpose: Memoir of a Bioentrepreneur (available on Amazon.com), was produced and self-published in a creative sprint between December, when his cancer recurred just a year after initial diagnosis and treatment, and April. He also has a blog, My Cancer Journey, and has been conducting media interviews. “I had a lot of motivation to write the book quickly,” he said wryly at his home in Yardley. In the final pages, he urges parents “to talk to their doctor about the HPV vaccine,” which “simply didn’t exist when I was a teenager, or it could have prevented my cancer.” The leading vaccine brand, Gardasil, was hailed as a breakthrough when it was introduced in 2006. It is approved to prevent cervical cancer and less common genital malignancies, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-07-06T09:33:47-07:00July, 2017|Oral Cancer News|