May 2022 – Oral Cancer News

NF-κB over-activation portends improved outcomes in HPV-associated head and neck cancer

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: staff, Impact Journals LLC A new research paper has been published in Oncotarget, titled "NF-κB over-activation portends improved outcomes in HPV-associated head and neck cancer." Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a devastating disease that impairs fundamental tissues involved in respiration, phonation and digestion. HNSCC is primarily caused by exposure to either ethanol and tobacco or the human papillomavirus (HPV). Among patients with HPV+ HNSCC, there is a growing clinical demand to develop robust stratification tools to accurately identify patients with good or poor prognosis. According to the research, "While oncologic outcomes for HPV+ HNSCC are generally favorable, treatment paradigms developed for HPV-negative disease burden many survivors of HPV+ HNSCC with lifelong debilitating treatment-associated side effects. On the other hand, ~30% of HPV+ HNSCC patients exhibit a more aggressive disease course and suffer recurrence." Somatic mutations or deletions in TRAF3 or CYLD identified a subset of HPV+ HNSCC associated with improved outcome. A cross talk between canonical and non-canonical NF-κB signaling suggests that TRAF3 and CYLD affect both NF-κB pathways. "Herein, we demonstrate that an RNA-based classifier trained on tumors harboring these mutations may improve prognostic classification," state the researchers. To improve on genomic classification, the researchers designed the current study to provide a foundation for development of NF-κB related, RNA based classification strategies to better identify HPV+ HNSCC patients with good or poor prognosis that could potentially aid in future efforts towards treatment personalization. "This report validates and expands on our findings that significant [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-05-26T07:49:55-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

Rocky Mountain Oncology Center to offer free head, neck cancer screening

Author: Klark Byrd Source: www.oilcitynews.com CASPER, Wyo. — Rocky Mountain Oncology Center is offering the public a no-cost head and neck cancer screening this summer. From 2 to 4 p.m. on June 25, the center will be open to the public in an effort to promote early detection of head and neck cancers. Screenings will take place at Rocky Mountain Oncology Center, 6501 E. 2nd St. In collaboration with local ENTs, dentists and oral surgeons, no-cost head and neck cancer screenings will be done for anyone with a lump in the neck, a sore in the mouth, a throat that does not heal and may be painful, a sore throat that does not go away, difficulty swallowing, and a change or hoarseness in the voice, a news release about the event states. No appointment is necessary.

OCF News Team - B2022-05-25T12:18:46-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

Revolutionary cancer tool can halve time some patients need radiotherapy

Source: www.nzherald.co.nz Author: Joe Pinkstone, Daily Telegraph UK A revolutionary cancer tool that can halve the time some patients need to be subjected to radiotherapy has been developed by British experts and is 99.9 per cent accurate. Head and neck cancers are notoriously tricky to tackle as the tumour and the patient's face often change shape during treatment due to significant weight loss. More than 12,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with head or neck cancer every year and the treatment involves being blasted with radiation to shrink a tumour while the patient lies motionless inside a mask that protects healthy tissue. "When I started training, we basically laid someone down on the bed, put a plastic mask on them and took some X-rays from the front and the side," Prof Kevin Harrington, head of radiotherapy and imaging at the Institute of Cancer Research and a consultant oncologist, told The Telegraph. "We would then blast away at them every day for six or seven weeks, treating the same area irrespective of the fact that during the treatment the patient would lose up to 10 per cent of their body weight. "Their body would shrink, the shape of the area we were radiating would shrink and as they subsided and lost weight the position of their head would slightly change and we wouldn't adjust one iota to that, we just carried on the way we were." In an ideal world, Harrington said, scans would be done every day to create [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-05-23T13:11:09-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

Gabapentin may cut opioid needs for oral mucositis pain during radiotherapy

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: staff For patients receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy for squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, higher doses of gabapentin are well tolerated and associated with delayed time to first opioid use for additional pain control during radiotherapy (RT), according to a research letter published online May 18 in JAMA Network Open. Sung Jun Ma, M.D., from the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, and colleagues performed a secondary analysis of two clinical trials involving 92 patients receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy for nonmetastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and prophylactic oral gabapentin (titrated to 900 mg versus 2,700 mg daily in one study and 3,600 mg daily in the other study). The researchers found that most patients tolerated gabapentin per protocol. The time to first opioid use for additional pain control was greatest in the 3,600-mg cohort in the multivariable competing risks model. The smallest proportion of patients requiring opioids during RT was seen in the 3,600-mg cohort compared with the 900-mg and 2,700-mg cohorts (37.5, 93.1, and 61.3 percent, respectively). Compared with the 3,600-mg cohort, the odds of feeding tube placement were significantly greater during RT in the 2,700-mg cohort; the odds were not significantly greater in the 900-mg cohort. "Although gabapentin, 3,600 mg, daily has been adopted as the standard regimen of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, additional studies are warranted to further investigate its role in pain control," the authors write.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-05-23T13:00:13-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

Yale doc: Throat, neck cancers caused by HPV ‘completely preventable’ with vaccine

Author: Ed Stannard Source: www.ctinsider.com NEW HAVEN — While it’s become widely known that the human papilloma virus causes cervical cancer, doctors have more recently discovered HPV is associated with another form of cancer. While cancer of the throat, back of the tongue, tonsils and soft palate (the location of the uvula), known as oropharyngeal cancer, can be caused by smoking or heavy drinking, HPV also has been linked to it, according to Dr. Saral Mehra, section chief for head and neck and otolaryngology surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. “This didn’t exist as far as we knew 20 or 30 years ago,” Mehra said, but it became clear that younger people who didn’t smoke or drink could get this type of cancer. That is why, Mehra said, it is important for all young people to receive the HPV vaccination. “If there’s one message I think we need to get out is we need to vaccinate all of our boys and girls,” he said. “I feel like head and neck cancer is such an important cancer and it’s not one of the big ones” that people think about, Mehra said. But surgery or radiation for these cancers “impacts so much of a person’s life: speaking, eating, drinking, cosmetic appearance,” Mehra said. “Head and neck cancer is typically thought of as a disease of people who smoke a lot and drink a lot,” Mehra said. “Not that everybody who has it has bad habits, but that is generally how it [...]

OCF News Team - B2022-05-23T11:16:01-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

New discovery could help combat side effects of cancer immunotherapy

Source: news.liverpool.ac.uk Author: staff Researchers in Liverpool and the US have made a breakthrough that could lead to improved immunotherapy treatments for some cancer patients. Their findings, which have been published in Nature, provide critical clues to why many immunotherapies trigger dangerous side effects – and point to a better strategy for treating patients with solid tumours, such as head and neck cancers. The work was led by Professor Christian Ottensmeier, Professor of Immuno-Oncology at the University of Liverpool and a Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, and Professor Pandurangan Vijayanand at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California. Immunotherapy side effects While immunotherapy has revolutionised the world of cancer treatment, long term disease control is achieved in only around 20 to 30 percent of patients with solid cancers. Immunotherapy can also come at a cost as many patients develop serious problems in their lungs, bowel, and even skin during treatment. These side effects can be debilitating and may force physicians to stop the immunotherapy. When head and neck patients started showing adverse side effects during an immunotherapy trial sponsored and funded by Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development in a number of cancer centres across the UK, the researchers went back through the data and worked with patient samples to see what went wrong. The patients had been given an oral cancer immunotherapy called a PI3Kδ inhibitor, which are new to the cancer immunotherapy scene, but hold promise for their ability to inhibit “regulatory” T [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-05-07T06:27:23-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|

Treatment for HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer varies by facility type

Author: Mark Leiser Source: www.healio.com DALLAS — Treatment modality for HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma varied considerably by facility type, according to study results. The findings — presented at American Head & Neck Society Annual Meeting — showed academic hospitals more frequently utilized surgery instead of radiation therapy or chemoradiation therapy alone as the primary treatment modality for early- and late-stage cancers. The findings suggest a lack of standardized treatment regimens that prevent patients from receiving universal care independent of facility resources, Monica S. Trent, MD, first-year resident at University of California, Irvine, and colleagues concluded. “There are many different ways to treat HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma and, in order to try to determine the best treatment option, it is important to know who is offering what types of treatment at different centers,” Trent told Healio. “Our results show patients are being treated differently depending on where they present, and treatment is not standardized across different types of facilities.” Background and methods HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is distinct from HPV-negative disease. It more frequently affects younger, healthier patients, and it is associated with improved prognosis and better historical survival outcomes after standard radiation and chemoradiation treatment protocols. The development of transoral robotic surgery offers an alternative upfront treatment option that could reduce short- and long-term morbidity without compromising oncologic outcomes, according to study background. However, due to the required resources and training needed for this modality, it has been offered primarily at academic medical centers. Trent and colleagues retrospectively [...]

OCF News Team - B2022-05-05T09:26:39-07:00May, 2022|Oral Cancer News|