February 2020 – Oral Cancer News

Another vaping hazard: less-healthy mouths

Source: www.usnews.com/ Author: Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter Your lungs might not be your only concern if you're trying electronic cigarettes -- your mouth may pay the price, too. Vaping alters the natural bacteria found in the mouth, leaving you more vulnerable to oral infections and inflammation, a new study reports. The researchers said this study is the first to show that vaping can alter the natural balance of beneficial bacteria (microbiome) in the mouth, adding to the list of potential health effects associated with e-cigarette use. "Cells that are exposed to e-cigarettes are more susceptible to infections," said the study's senior author, Deepak Saxena. He's a professor of basic science and craniofacial biology at NYU College of Dentistry in New York City. Saxena said that e-cigarettes also lead to increased inflammation, which harms oral health. And once someone develops inflammation, it's possible to develop white patches in the mouth called leukoplakia that sometimes develop into cancer. However, this study doesn't have enough long-term evidence to show whether or not these changes could lead to oral cancers in the future, Saxena said. "Our study is just one piece of this big puzzle on e-cigarettes, and I would advise people to not use them. If you have not started, don't start. Nicotine is highly addictive," he said. A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from November suggested that as many as one out of every five U.S. high school students had vaped in the last month. That's especially concerning since [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-27T09:26:31-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

What’s coming down the pike in the dental profession?

Source: www.dentistryiq.com Author: Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS A plethora of dental research is underway in the US as well as globally. Some of these advancements will come to fruition and be commercially available, and some will die on the vine. There are innovations in essentially every dental discipline, with breakthroughs that have the potential to enhance oral health in ways we couldn’t imagine in the past. The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) will increase in the future. AI is already at work in hospitals to diagnose cancer and anticipate trends in health care. AI will have a significant effect in the dental profession on a daily basis, from evaluating images for pathology, to prosthetics and systemic care, among many others. AI promises to increase efficiency in dental practice by facilitating faster diagnosis, predictive analytics, and autocharting. Other areas of research and development include gene therapy and stem cells. Research is underway using gene therapy to restore salivary function in patients who have undergone radiation treatment, which could be a tremendous improvement in health for these individuals. The negative impact of dry mouth extends far beyond the discomfort associated with inadequate or complete lack of saliva. It has a significant effect on the quality of life of the individual and the health of the oral cavity. The ability to restore salivary function could be life-changing for many people. Other initiatives involve transformative research in periodontics, specifically agents operating on the host response and others applied to the diseased periodontal pockets. Some [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-25T08:26:05-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Absent p53, oral cancers recruit and reprogram nerves to fuel tumor growth

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: by University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Loss of an important tumor-suppressing gene allows head and neck cancer to spin off signals to nearby nerves, changing their function and recruiting them to the tumor, where they fuel growth and cancer progression, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report in the journal Nature today. By cracking the mechanism that launches neuronal invasion of tumors, a known marker of poor prognosis for patients, the team has uncovered possible avenues to block the process, including the use of drugs commonly used to treat blood pressure and irregular heartbeat. "Tons of studies show that patients who have lots of nerves in their tumor are doing worse—recurrence rates are higher, survival is shorter," says co-first author Moran Amit, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Head and Neck Surgery. "Nerve endings found in surgically removed tumors can't be easily characterized or tracked back to their source, so it's been a neglected field, a neglected hallmark of cancer." "When surgeons remove head and neck cancers and find a high degree of nerve invasion, post-surgical radiation sometimes is effective," said co-senior author Jeffrey Myers, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Head and Neck Surgery. "But we really haven't understood whether the tumor was growing into the nerves or the nerve growing into the tumor and what signaling drove those interactions." Co-senior author George Calin, M.D., Ph.D., professor of Experimental Therapeutics and an expert on non-coding RNAs added that the paper "puts together [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-13T08:56:02-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

FDA grants fast track designation to NBTXR3 in locally advanced head and neck cancers

Source: www.targetedonc.com Author: Nichole Tucker An FDA Fast Track Designation was granted to the first-in-class radioenhancer NBTXR3 with or without cetuximab (Erbitux) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell cancer who are not eligible for platinum-based chemotherapy, according to a press release from Nanobiotix.1 NBTXR3 showed preliminary signals of antitumor activity in this patient population in a phase I study of 12 patients with advanced-stage head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Specifically, 10 of the 11 evaluable patients had a complete response (CR) or a partial response to treatment, which included 2 CRs at dose levels ≤10% and 5 CRs at dose levels >10%.2 Treatment with NBTXR3 was also found to be safe and tolerable in patients with HNSCC. There were no serious adverse events or dose-limiting toxicities (DLTs) observed, which allowed patients to continue with their treatment as planned. The adverse events found to be related to injection with NBTXR3 included grade 1/2 injection pain and tumor hemorrhage. Patients in the study received either a single intratumor injection or single-arterial injection of NBTXR3 on day 1 followed by intensity-modulated radiation therapy 2 hours later, which lasted for up to 7 weeks. Radiotherapy was continued in all patients unless their tumor did not shrink by 50% of the baseline size. Those patients who did achieve the tumor shrinkage goals then received salvage tumor surgery. The primary end point of the study was the determination of the recommended dose of the drug and early [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-11T08:31:16-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

How Can Dental Practitioners Join the Fight Against HPV-Associated Oropharyngeal Cancer?

Source: Aegis Dental Network Date: February 2020, Volume 41, Issue 2 Authors: Jack Dillenberg, DDS, MPH; A. Ross Kerr, DDS, MSD; Alexis Koskan, PhD; Seena Patel, DMD, MPH; Mai-Ly Duong, DMD, MPH, MAEdAeg Dr. Dillenberg The entire dental team has the responsibility of impacting the overall health of their patients. This becomes even more relevant with the realization that up to 27 million people each year visit a dentist and not a physician, thus providing a special opportunity for primary care issues to be addressed in the dental setting. One such opportunity is oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) prevention and control. An estimated 51,540 new cases of oral and pharyngeal cancer occurred in 2019, with a 5-year relative survival rate of 65%.1 Of these, it is estimated that 19,000 are human papilloma virus (HPV)-associated OPC, which is the only cancer that has increased in prevalence in the past 5 years, and that these numbers will continue to rise.1 Whereas the use of alcohol and tobacco were once the leading causes of OPC, the emergence of HPV infection as the main cause of OPC has changed everything. Infection with HPV (particularly HPV type 16) is transmitted primarily through sexual contact and is a vaccine-preventable virus. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease and can be spread even when someone infected with this virus has no signs or symptoms. Therefore, the dental team should be aware of this serious emerging cancer, be able to educate patients about risk factors, and engage in preventive [...]

Charlotte Parker2020-02-10T13:55:12-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Surveillance of ctDNA in HPV-positive head and neck cancers may predict recurrence

Source: www.targetedonc.com Author: Nichole Tucker The detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in human papillomavirus (HPV) with an experimental blood test has been associated with high positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) for identifying disease recurrence in HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, according to a press release from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.1 “The major utility of this test is it’s going to improve our ability to monitor patients after they complete treatment,” said Bhisham Chera, MD, associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology. “Currently, our methods to assess whether the cancer has recurred are invasive, expensive and not always accurate.” In a prospective biomarker clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, investigators obtained 1006 blood samples for their analysis, 999 of which were evaluable for plasma circulating tumor human papillomavirus DNA (ctHPVDNA). The goal was to determine if surveillance of ctHPVDNA can facilitate earlier detection of recurrence compared with normal clinical follow-up.2 Patients were followed for a median of 23.7 months (range, 6.1-54.7 months), and out of 115 patients, 13% developed disease recurrence (n = 15). Of these recurrences, 1 was local only, 1 was regional only, 10 were distant only, 1 was local and distant, and the remaining 2 were regional and distant. Following treatment, 87 patients had undetectable ctHPVDNA, and none developed recurrence (95% CI, 96%-100%). The development of a positive ctHPVDNA occurred in 28 patients during post-treatment surveillance. The median time to abnormal [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-07T08:57:22-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Botanical drug is shown to help patients with head and neck cancers

Source: newsroom.ucla.edu Author: Duane Bates, UCLA Research Brief Findings In a UCLA-led phase I clinical trial, a new plant-based drug called APG-157 showed signs of helping patients fight oral and oropharyngeal cancers. These cancers are located in the head and the neck. APG-157 is made up of multiple compounds produced by plants, including curcumin. UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers found that treatment with this botanical drug resulted in high concentrations of curcumin and its byproducts circulating in the blood and absorbed by tumor tissues within three hours after being taken orally. APG-157 reduced the concentration of cytokines — proteins involved in inflammation — in the saliva when administered to cancer patients. The therapy also reduced the relative abundance of Bacteroides species, a group of gram-negative bacteria. Gram negative refers to a group of dangerous bacteria that have an outer layer which hides them from the immune system. The relative abundance of gram-negative bacteria compared to the presence of other types of bacteria is correlated with oral cancer. APG-157 also resulted in the expression of genes that are associated with attracting immune system T cells to the tumor area. This therapy could have a beneficial effect when used in combination with immunotherapy drugs that help immune system T cells recognize and kill tumors. The treatment did not have any adverse effects on the study’s participants. Background Cancers of the head and neck account for 4% of all cancers. About 650,000 new cases are reported each year around the world. People [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-06T08:55:08-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Curcumin has anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects on tongue cancer in vitro: a study with bioinformatics analysis and in vitro experiments

Source: www.dovepress.com Authors: Chao Ma,1 Zongming Zhuang,1 Qisheng Su,2 Jianfeng He,1 Haoyu Li1 Purpose: This study focused on the mechanism underlying the therapeutic effect of curcumin against tongue cancer (TC). Accepted for publication in Drug Design, Development and Therapy, Volume 14. Methods: Target genes of TC and curcumin were identified, respectively. Three datasets of TC from Gene Expression Omnibus were included, and then the differentially expressed genes were collected. After combing the data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, bioinformatics analyses were performed to investigate hub genes in terms of the functions and correlations. The proliferation and migration of TC cells were evaluated with CCK-8 assay and scratch wound healing assay, respectively. Cell apoptosis was evaluated by TUNEL assay, flow cytometry and Western blot. Cell cycle was determined by flow cytometry. Results: In this study, 15 hub genes were identified (TK1, TDRD3, TAGLN2, RNASEH2A, PDE2A, NCF2, MAP3K3, GPX3, GPD1L, GBP1, ENO1, CAT, ALDH6A1, AGPS and ACACB). They were mainly enriched in oxygen-related processes, such as oxidation-reduction process, reactive oxygen species metabolic process, hydrogen peroxide catabolic process, oxidoreductase activity and Peroxisome-related pathway. The expression levels of hub gene mRNAs were positively correlated with each other’s expression levels. None of the hub genes was correlated with prognosis (P > 0.05). Curcumin significantly inhibited CAL 27 cell proliferation and migration (P

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-02-04T10:21:33-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Cancers Caused by HPV Respond Better to Treatment — a New Study Helps Explain Why

Source: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Date: January 20th, 2020 Author: Matthew Tontonoz Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes several types of cancer, including cervical, anal, and head and neck cancers. People with these tumors are more easily cured with radiation and chemotherapy than people with tumors not caused by HPV. Scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering now think they understand why. “We’ve known that HPV-associated cancers respond much better to radiation therapy, but it hasn’t been clear why that is,” says Daniel Higginson, a physician-scientist at MSK. “Our research shows that it’s likely because the virus alters the cells’ normal DNA repair machinery.” Radiation therapy damages DNA. Cancers caused by HPV are less able to repair this damage and so they die. The difference in cure rates between HPV-caused and non-HPV-caused cancers is stark: 85% to 90% of patients with HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer (which affects the middle part of the throat), for example, are cured by radiation and chemotherapy, compared with about 60% of people with non-HPV-caused oropharyngeal cancer. “We don’t have many biomarkers that predict response to radiation therapy,” says Dr. Higginson. “But HPV is a very good one and is consistent across multiple malignancies.” What the Virus Does HPV promotes cancer by inserting pieces of its own DNA into a person’s cells. The DNA pieces trick the human cells into making two distinct proteins that cooperate to turn normal cells cancerous. These proteins (called E6 and E7) disrupt the cells’ machinery for stopping unwanted growth (specifically, two proteins called p53 [...]

Charlotte Parker2020-02-03T11:32:15-07:00February, 2020|Oral Cancer News|