2018 – Page 7 – Oral Cancer News

Smoking, cancer, heart disease, and the oral-systemic link: Where we are with research

Source: www.dentistryiq.com Author: Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS Dr. Richard Nagelberg examines the links between smoking, lung cancer, and heart disease, as well as the types of research and studies that established the strength of their credibility over time. Likewise, he considers where we are today with the link between oral health and overall health as he evaluates the current state of oral-systemic research. Perhaps the most universally accepted facts in health care are the detrimental effects of tobacco, particularly cigarette smoking, for nearly every part of the body. It is safe to say that no one disputes the direct causal links between cigarette smoking, lung cancer, and heart disease. Listed below are only two statements regarding the state of this knowledge. ✔️The scientific evidence is incontrovertible: inhaling tobacco smoke, particularly from cigarettes, is deadly. Since the first Surgeon General’s Report in 1964, evidence has linked smoking to diseases of nearly all organs of the body. (surgeongeneral.gov. June 21, 2018) ✔️Smoking is by far the biggest preventable cause of cancer. Thanks to years of research, the links between smoking and cancer are now very clear. Smoking accounts for more than 1 in 4 UK cancer deaths, and 3 in 20 cancer cases. (cancerresearchuk.org) There is a boatload of research supporting this link. However, there has never been one large-scale double-blinded interventional study demonstrating that smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease. The fact that this link exists is based on the cumulative results of numerous smaller studies over a long period [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-08-18T16:04:12-07:00August, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Study: Cetuximab, radiation inferior to standard HPV throat cancer treatment

Source: upi.com Author: Allen Cone Treating HPV-positive throat cancer with cetuximab and radiation had worse overall and progression-free survival results compared with the current method of treatment with radiation and cisplatin, the National Institutes of Health revealed Tuesday. The trial, which was funded by the National Cancer Institute, was intended to test whether the combination would be less toxic than cisplatin but be just as effective for human papillomavirus-positive oropharyngeal cancer. The trial, which began in 2011, enrolled 849 patients at least 18 years old with the cancer to receive cetuximab or cisplatin with radiation. The trial is expected to finish in 2020. Cetuximab, which is manufactured under the brand name Erbitux by Eli Lilly, and cisplatin, which as sold as Platinol by Pfizer, are used in chemotherapy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved cetuximab with radiation for patients with head and neck cancer, including oropharyngeal cancer. HPV, which is transmitted through intimate skin-to-skin contact, is the leading cause of oropharynx cancers, which are the throat at the back of the mouth, including the soft palate, the base of the tongue and the tonsils. Most people at risk are white, non-smoking males age 35 to 55 -- including a 4-to-1 male ratio over females -- according to The Oral Cancer Foundation. The NIH released the trial results after an interim analysis showed that cetuximab with radiation wasn't as effective. In a median follow-up of 4.5 years, the test combination was found to be "significantly inferior" to the cisplatin [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-08-15T15:48:59-07:00August, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Hundreds of Researchers From Harvard, Yale and Stanford Were Published in Fake Academic Journals

Source: motherboard.vice.com Author: Daniel Oberhaus In the so-called “post-truth era,” science seems like one of the last bastions of objective knowledge, but what if science itself were to succumb to fake news? Over the past year, German journalist Svea Eckert and a small team of journalists went undercover to investigate a massive underground network of fake science journals and conferences. In the course of the investigation, which was chronicled in the documentary “Inside the Fake Science Factory,” the team analyzed over 175,000 articles published in predatory journals and found hundreds of papers from academics at leading institutions, as well as substantial amounts of research pushed by pharmaceutical corporations, tobacco companies, and others. Last year, one fake science institution run by a Turkish family was estimated to have earned over $4 million in revenue through conferences and journals. The story begins with Chris Sumner, a co-founder of the nonprofit Online Privacy Foundation, who unwittingly attended a conference organized by the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET) last October. At first glance, WASET seems to be a legitimate organization. Its website lists thousands of conferences around the world in pretty much every conceivable academic discipline, with dates scheduled all the way out to 2031. It has also published over ten thousand papers in an “open science, peer reviewed, interdisciplinary, monthly and fully referred [sic] international research journal” that covers everything from aerospace engineering to nutrition. To any scientist familiar with the peer review process, however, WASET’s site has a number [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-08-14T10:32:58-07:00August, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

How ablation destroys cancer to prolong lives

Source: The Guardian Author: David Cox Seven years ago, when Heather Hall was informed by her oncologist that her kidney cancer had spread to the liver, she initially assumed she had just months to live. “I’d been on chemotherapy for a while, but they’d done a CT scan and found three new tumours,” she says. “But they then said that, because the tumours were relatively small, they could try to lengthen my prognosis by removing them with ablation.” Hall underwent a course of microwave ablation, a minimally invasive treatment where surgeons use hollow needles to deliver intense, focused doses of radiation to heat each tumour until it is destroyed. While ablation technologies – they also commonly include radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation, which destroys tumours using intense cold – are not tackling the underlying cause of the disease, their impact can be enormous as they relieve pain and often prolong survival for many years, all at a low cost. Studies based on data gathered over the past 10 years show an increasing number of cases of terminally ill patients who have lived for well over a decade after being treated with repeated ablations. Hall’s treatment was successful, but two years later, another two tumours had appeared in her liver, in different locations. Once again they were removed with microwave ablation. Over the past seven years, she has had four separate treatments. “There’s some pain in the immediate aftermath and I’ve felt quite ill for a week afterwards,” she says. “But it [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-08-06T10:43:25-07:00August, 2018|OCF In The News|

The surge in throat cancer, especially in men

Source: newswise.com Author: UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center Humanpapilloma virus (HPV) is now the leading cause of certain types of throat cancer. Dr. Michael Moore, director of head and neck surgery at UC Davis and an HPV-related cancer expert, answers some tough questions about the trend and what can be done about it. Q: What is HPV and how is it related to head and neck cancers? A: There are about 150 different types of HPV, but HPV 16 is the one that most frequently causes cancers that affect the tissue in the oropharynx, which includes back of the throat, soft palate, tonsils and the back or base of the tongue. You can get non-cancerous lesions from other types of HPV that look like warts in the nose, mouth or throat, called papillomas. Some can develop in childhood just from exposure early in life. Some develop later in life and only occasionally turn into cancer. Q: How do you get HPV? A: HPV can spread from mother to her baby around the time of delivery. It also spreads through unprotected vaginal, anal or oral sex, and even open-mouth kissing. Some people have been found to be infected without an obvious cause. Q: How does HPV cause cancer? A: Most people who are infected clear the virus on their own. In a small group of people it hangs around and causes a persistent infection. Around 1% of US adults have a persistent HPV 16 infection, and in a small subset of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-08-01T07:56:03-07:00August, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Smarter cancer treatment: AI tool automates radiation therapy planning

Source: news.engineering.utoronto.ca Author: Brian Tran Aaron Babier (MIE PhD candidate) demonstrates his AI-based software’s visualization capabilities. (Credit: Brian Tran) Beating cancer is a race against time. Developing radiation therapy plans — individualized maps that help doctors determine where to blast tumours — can take days. Now, Aaron Babier (MIE PhD candidate) has developed automation software that aims to cut the time down to mere hours. He, along with co-authors Justin Boutilier (MIE PhD 1T8), supervisor Professor Timothy Chan (MIE) and Professor Andrea McNiven (Faculty of Medicine) are looking at radiation therapy design as an intricate — but solvable — optimization problem. Their software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mine historical radiation therapy data. This information is then applied to an optimization engine to develop treatment plans. The researchers applied this software tool in their study of 217 patients with throat cancer, who also received treatments developed using conventional methods. The therapies generated by Babier’s AI achieved comparable results to patients’ conventionally planned treatments. — and it did so within 20 minutes. The researchers recently published their findings in Medical Physics. “There have been other AI optimization engines that have been developed. The idea behind ours is that it more closely mimics the current clinical best practice,” says Babier. If AI can relieve clinicians of the optimization challenge of developing treatments, more resources are available to improve patient care and outcomes in other ways. Health-care professionals can divert their energy to increasing patient comfort and easing distress. “Right now [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-08-01T07:42:25-07:00August, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

How oral bacteria could lead to breakthroughs in cancer, weight loss, and overall health

Source: www.mensjournal.com Author: Marjorie Korn As if you don’t have enough reasons to feel guilty for avoiding the dentist, it turns out a healthy mouth is linked to a lot more. than the absence of cavities and plaque. Researchers say our mouths are home to an ecosystem of billions of bacteria with influence far beyond our teeth and gums—influence they are just starting to unravel. “We know that oral bacteria affect almost every aspect of our health—metabolism, cardiovascular system, neurological health, and more,” says Yiping Han, a microbiologist at Columbia University Dental and Medical Schools in New York City. Scientists like Han are grappling with questions that will change our understanding of how the body works. Not only are they studying the ways bacteria in our mouths interact with one another but they’re also investigating why mouth bacteria show up in other parts of the body, such as the lining of the heart, around tumors, and even in the brain. The idea that our bodies host a world of bacteria may sound familiar. For the past decade, we’ve seen a surge of scientific research on the gut microbiome, which describes the bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal tract. Gut bacteria seem to have a hand in a surprising number of functions, from the predictable (like digestion and nutrient uptake) to the more surprising (obesity and depression). So it makes sense that the next place for a breakthrough would be upstream—the mouth. Scientists have identified 700-plus strains of bacteria swiped from [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-07-31T07:51:05-07:00July, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

The UK will give boys cancer-preventing HPV vaccine

Source: www.care2.com Author: Steve Williams The UK has announced that, after a great deal of pressure, it will be making the HPV vaccine available to teenage boys, potentially protecting them from a number of cancers. The vaccine is routinely offered to teenage girls in schools. It has shown an impressive safety record while at the same time driving down cervical, oral and throat cancer rates by protecting young women from sexually transmitted HPV. Campaigners have long said that teenage boys should also be provided the vaccine, because evidence has shown the HPV vaccine can reduce rates of oral, throat, penile and anal cancers. Unfortunately, Public Health England has taken some convincing on this issue, with a cash-strapped National Health Service having to make sure that every investment more than pays its way. Now, the government says it believes the cost is far outweighed by the public health benefit. Dr. Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisations at Public Health England, is quoted as saying, “This extended programme offers us the opportunity to make HPV related diseases a thing of the past and build on the success of the girls’ programme, which has already reduced the prevalence of HPV 16 and 18, the main cancer-causing types, by over 80 percent.” This change of course comes after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said earlier this month that, after careful review, it believed the HPV vaccination program should be extended to boys, as it found “gender-neutral vaccination is highly likely to be cost [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-07-30T07:55:48-07:00July, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

E-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco can put you at a greater risk of oral cancer, says study

Source: www.thehealthsite.com Author: Sreemoyee Chatterjee Not just cigarette smokers, those smoking e-cigarettes as well as consuming smokeless tobacco like chewing tobacco and more are at greater risk of developing oral cancer, shows a recent study conducted by University of California. In case you think only cigarette smokers are at a higher risk of getting oral cancer, you are widely mistaken. A recent study has found that a wide majority of non-cigarette tobacco users as well those using electronic cigarettes are exposed to considerable level of carcinogen, as much as a cigarette user is exposed to. Not just that, shockingly smokeless tobacco users were found at a greater exposure to tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNA). The study has been conducted by the scholars from University of California, San Francisco. Starting from cigarettes to cigar, waterpipes, pipes, marijuana containing cigar to smokeless products like moist snuff, chewing tobacco, e-cigarettes, snus and other nicotine replacement products can increase your chance of getting oral cancer, revealed the study. What is Oral cancer? Belonging to the head and neck cancer group, oral cancer is a type of cancer that grows in mouth or throat tissues and mostly hit the squamous cells of your mouth, tongue and lips. Oral cancer can of several types – lip cancer, tongue cancer, cancer in the inner lining of your cheek, gums, floor of the mouth and hard and soft palate. It is important to go to a dentist for a biannual check-up for early detection of oral cancer, experts say. Due [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-07-30T06:12:38-07:00July, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

HPV: The gender-neutral killer in need of prevention among men

Source: CNN Author: Dominic Rech In July 2014, Phil Rech, then 59, was diagnosed with tonsil cancer. "I had got a lump in my neck. I had the tonsils out, and within the next few days, I was having radical neck dissection," he said. "Then I had six weeks of intensive, targeted radiotherapy. The burning effect towards the end of the treatment became very painful." The therapy involved a radiotherapy mask, molded to the shape of his face, that went over his head as radiotherapy was beamed in, targeting the cancer. The discovery of his cancer not only startled him, it startled everyone who knew him. Phil is my dad, and to our family, he had always been healthy: He doesn't smoke, he rarely drinks alcohol, and he generally stays fairly fit. But that's not how cancer works. At the time of the diagnosis, Phil didn't question how or what could have caused his cancer, as he focused on getting better. Like many men in the UK and around the world, he wasn't aware of a group of viruses that were a threat, human papillomavirus or HPV, which were eventually connected to his cancer. "To discover it was linked to HPV was a massive shock," he said. "There was a lot of speculation over what could have caused it. To discover it was that, was certainly a surprise. I didn't really know it was a threat to me." A cancerous virus HPV is a group of 150 related viruses that [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-07-28T15:15:04-07:00July, 2018|OCF In The News|