July 2019 – Oral Cancer News

Psychological impact of head and neck cancers

Source: pharmafield.co.uk Author: Emma Morriss Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), in partnership with patient groups The Swallows and the Mouth Cancer Foundation, have announced the results from a patient survey into the psychological impact of head and neck cancers. The research explored the long-term burden of treatment on head and neck cancer patients. After undergoing treatment for head and neck cancer, which can include surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, many patients report an ongoing impact on their day-to-day life. However, 55% of the 118 patients surveyed indicated they did not receive the right level of information in preparation for the complications encountered from treatment. There are around 11,900 new head and neck cancer cases in the UK every year and the incidence of head and neck cancer has increased by 32% since the early 1990s. Following treatment, the survey showed 56% of patients had problems with simple things like swallowing, often experiencing severe pain, while two-thirds of patients experienced changes in their voice or speech. The survey also showed self-reported change from pre- to post- treatment in vital areas including a drop in the ability to communicate (37%), memory loss (21%), and trouble sleeping (20%). As well as physical symptoms, treatment can have severe implications on mental health too. 52% of patients reported feelings of anxiety before treatment, which only reduced to 48% following treatment. However, emotional and psychological support was only offered to 46% of patients. A majority of patients did receive access to a clinical nurse specialist, however there was still [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-07-31T19:42:04-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Aggressive radiotherapy dose de-escalation confers benefits in HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Aggressively de-escalated adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with HPV-associated oropharynx squamous cell carcinoma produced local tumor control rates comparable to those of historical controls, according to results of a single-arm phase 2 study published in Journal of Clinical Oncology. The de-escalated treatment also was associated with decreased toxicity and slight improvement in swallowing function. “HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma represents a demographically and biologically distinct disease compared with historical head and neck squamous cell carcinomas,” Daniel J. Ma, MD, radiation oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues wrote. “Patients are more likely to be younger and nonsmokers and have fewer medical comorbidities. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo experiments have demonstrated that these tumors are more sensitive to radiotherapy and chemotherapy compared with historical head and neck squamous cell carcinomas.” The current standard treatment for HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is 7 weeks of radiotherapy at 70 Gy in combination with cisplatin or surgery followed by a 6-week regimen of adjuvant radiotherapy at 60 Gy to 66 Gy with or without cisplatin. However, these approaches result in significant toxicities. The two-cohort study by Ma and colleagues included 79 patients (mean age, 58.7 years; 89.9% men) with p16-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma who had a smoking history of 10 years or less and negative margins. Patients in cohort A (n = 36) received 30 Gy delivered in 1.5-Gy fractions twice daily for 2 weeks in combination with 15 mg/m2 docetaxel once per week. Cohort B (n = 43), which included [...]

Brian Hill2019-07-29T16:20:52-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

UB center helps bring local dental products to market

Source: www.buffalo.edu Author: Marcene Robinson Stocked on the shelves of Western New York pharmacies is a bottle of dry mouth spray Lubricity, a product developed and manufactured locally by You First Services, Inc. with the support of the University at Buffalo Center for Dental Studies. Through the partnership, the UB Center for Dental Studies verified the effectiveness of Lubricity through clinical trials, helping bring the product to market and contribute to the growth of You First Services as a budding employer in the region. Since its establishment in 1988, the UB Center for Dental Studies has built an extensive history of performing scientific and clinical studies for new products by major companies around the world, including Johnson & Johnson and Colgate-Palmolive. However, the center also works with local manufacturers, providing access to cutting-edge technology, state-of-the-art facilities and guidance from experienced researchers. Since its inception, the center has completed more than $15 million in research projects with contracts ranging from $10,000 to $450,000. “Ease of accessibility to university scholars is one of the major benefits of having a research university like UB in our community, said Sebastian Ciancio, DDS, director of the Center for Dental Studies and Distinguished Service Professor in the UB School of Dental Medicine. “Our Center for Dental Studies has helped manufacturers bring a number of useful products to the marketplace to improve oral health of consumers.” Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018, Lubricity, works as a saliva substitute for those who suffer from [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-07-21T07:52:32-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Examining the potential of preoperative CT lymphography with ICG in oral cancer

Source: www.cancernetwork.com Author: Leah Lawrence The majority of patients with localized squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue had at least one sentinel lymph node (SLN) successfully identified and removed using preoperative computed tomography (CT) lymphography and intraoperative indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence, according to a small study published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. According to Kohei Honda, MD, of Hiigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, in Akita, Japan, and colleagues, this combined method “has the potential to provide clear visualization with high sensitivity, even if the SLN is located close to the primary injection site”. Traditionally, SLN detection is performed using preoperative lymphoscintigraphy with radioisotopes and intraoperative γ-probe detection with or without blue dye mapping. However, the use of radioisotopes has its disadvantages, including exposure to radiation, high cost, and masking of SLN because of shine-through radioactivity when close to the injection site. Honda and colleagues tested the usefulness of SLN biopsy with preoperative CT lymphography and intraoperative ICG. The study included 18 patients with previously untreated cN0 tongue cancer. All patients underwent CT lymphography prior to SLN biopsy. During biopsy, a minimum skin incision was made according to a predetermined location of SLN and SLN were excised under ICG guidance. Of the 18 patients, SLN could be mapped using preoperative CT lymphography in 16 patients (89%), in whom at least one SLN was identified and removed using intraoperative ICG. Metastases to SLN were found in 5 of the 16 patients (31%). There were two patients with [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-07-19T04:22:19-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Precision Medicine Is Crushing Once-Untreatable Cancers

Source: Newsweek Date: June 16th, 2019 Author: David H. freedman For tens of thousands of patients, precision medicine is rewriting their cancer stories. Linda Boyed, for example, an energetic 52-year-old occupational therapist, was thrilled to be on vacation with her family in Hawaii, hitting the beaches and taking long walks. But she couldn't shake a constant feeling of fatigue. By the time she returned home, near Columbus, Ohio, her skin had yellowed. Her doctor passed her to an oncologist, who delivered the bad news: Cancer of the bile ducts in her liver had already spread too far for chemotherapy or surgery to do any good. He offered to help keep her comfortable for her final few months. Boyed's husband refused to accept that prognosis. He found a doctor at Ohio State's cancer center who was running studies of experimental drugs for gastrointestinal cancers. Boyed signed herself up. Genetic tests on her tumors revealed a mutation in a gene called FGFR (short for "fibroblast growth factor receptor"), which was likely spurring the cancer's growth. The doctor gave her an experimental drug, called BGJ398, to inhibit the action of the FGFR mutation. Boyed's symptoms cleared up, the tumors stopped growing, and she regained the weight she had lost. That was three years ago. These days Boyed gets downright bubbly when she tells the story. "I basically lead a normal life now," she says. "I just watched my son graduate from high school. I think I actually did more in the past [...]

Charlotte Parker2019-07-17T11:52:27-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

New guidelines for patients suffering from mucositis or oral ulcerations from head and neck cancer treatment

Source: business.financialpost.com Author: press release MedX Health Corp. announces it will initiate a targeted marketing campaign following an announcement by a worldwide coalition of researchers and clinicians who have agreed that light therapy is among the most effective interventions for the prevention of oral mucositis and painful ulcers in the mouth and throat resulting from cancer therapy. The Company said this represents a significant sales opportunity in Canada and the United States for MedX’s photobiomodulation therapy devices. The new guidelines from the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (“MASCC”) and International Society of Oral Oncology (“ISOO”), recently published in the journal Supportive Care in Cancer, present a significant upgrade in care guidelines for adult cancer patients worldwide (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31286228). More than 70,000 head and neck cancers are diagnosed annually in Canada and the United States, and it is documented that 100% of patients undergoing radiation therapy for these cancers will develop mucositis, which patients report as the worst side effect of their cancer treatment. Pain from the condition can slow or delay cancer treatment, and in severe cases require hospitalization. “Cancer patients can now benefit from this non-invasive, non-pharmacological treatment for a common, debilitating side effect of treatment,” said Dr. Praveen Arany, DDS, PhD, the current President of the World Association for Photobiomodulation Therapy (W.A.L.T.), a co-corresponding author on the MASCC/ISOO paper and assistant professor of oral biology and biomedical engineering at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine. “Recent advancements in our understanding of mechanisms of low dose [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-07-17T06:24:34-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

They turn to Facebook and YouTube to find a cure for cancer — and get sucked into a world of bogus medicine

Source: The Washington Post Date: June 25th, 2019 Author: Abby Ohlheiser Mari pressed kale leaves through the juicer, preparing the smoothie that she believed had saved her life. “I’m a cancer-killer, girl,” Mari told her niece, who stood next to her in the kitchen. The pair were filming themselves for a YouTube video. Mari said she was in remission from a dangerous form of cancer, and the video was meant as a testimony to what she believed was the power of the “lemon ginger blast.” In went some cucumber, some apple, some bok choy, a whole habanero pepper. While she pressed, she preached. “I’m telling you, it’s anti-cancer,” Mari said. “It’ll kill your cancer cells.” The video, first uploaded in 2016, remains on YouTube, but there’s an “important update” attached to the video’s description. It was written by Liz, the niece, a year later. Mari’s cancer had returned, the note said, and she had died. When Mari’s cancer came back, Liz wrote, her aunt opted to do chemotherapy. Her smoothie recipe remains online, with 506,000 views and counting. “I will not take down her videos,” wrote Liz, who declined to comment for this story, in the description of a follow-up video, “as they continue to help people.” I found Mari’s videos without looking for them last fall, when a search for a smoothie recipe opened up an algorithmic tunnel to videos that claimed to know the secret to curing cancer. These tunnels, forged by Google searches and Facebook recommendations, connect [...]

Charlotte Parker2019-07-10T11:16:26-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Updated HPV vaccine recommendations follow big HPV infection drops shown in new study

Source: www.forbes.com Author: Tara Haelle A vial of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) Adults up to age 45 are now recommended to discuss with their doctors getting the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which prevents 3% of all cancer in women and 2% of all cancer in men—an estimated 34,000 cancers a year in the U.S. Following confirmation from the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the recommendations also extend the age in men from age 21 to age 26, the same as in women. The decision from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) July 26 came the same day The Lancet published the largest study to date on the vaccine’s effectiveness. The meta-analysis of 65 studies found drops of 31%-83% of HPV infections and genital warts in men and women, depending on age and diagnosis. HPV is responsible for nearly all cervical cancer, over 90% of anal cancer, 70% of oral, throat and neck cancers and over 60% of penile cancer. Though HPV is primarily transmitted through sexual contact, non-sexual transmission occurs as well. Previously, the HPV vaccine had been recommended for females and males in a series of two doses up to age 14 or three doses up to age 26 in women and age 21 in men. Men ages 22-26 could also get the vaccine. ACIP’s unanimous vote to extend the recommendation to age 26 in men corresponds to evidence showing the vaccine’s substantial benefits [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-07-05T06:35:12-07:00July, 2019|Oral Cancer News|