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Word of Mouth

Author: Veronica Jauriqui Source: University of Southern California (www.usc.edu) Oral Cancer Awareness Week begins April 16. Even though the disease has maintained a low public profile, the American Cancer Society estimates that more than 34,000 new cases will be diagnosed in 2007. Here is what you should know to reduce the risk of oral cancer. Nearly every hour of every day, someone in the United States dies of oral cancer, according to the Oral Cancer Foundation, a national non-profit agency dedicated to prevention, education and research in oral cancers. Oral and pharyngeal cancers (cancers of the lip, mouth, tongue and throat) account for about 7,500 deaths per year and have a higher fatality rate than cancers of the lung, breast, prostate and cervix. While it does not share the same high public profile as these other diseases, oral cancer is the eighth most common cancer in this country. And in many developing countries—like India, China and Vietnam—it is number one. The statistics are disturbing, especially since oral cancer is highly preventable, explains Parish Sedghizadeh, D.D.S., assistant professor at the USC School of Dentistry. In fact, the Oral Cancer Foundation says that when oral cancers are found early, patients have an estimated 80 to 90 percent survival rate. “Like most cancers, early screening is the key,” Sedghizadeh says. “The first line of defense is knowing who is at risk and what to look for.” What are the signs? The majority of oral cancers—those on the lips, tongue, inside the lining of [...]

Webmaster2008-07-08T22:16:49-07:00December, 2007|OCF In The News|

Actress Colleen Zenk Pinter Partners with the Oral Cancer Foundation to Raise Public Awareness

Two time Emmy nominated actress Colleen Zenk Pinter, best known for her long running role as Barbara Ryan on CBS's As the World Turns, has teamed up with the Oral Cancer Foundation to share the story of her battle against oral cancer, and raise public awareness of a disease which kills more Americans each year than more commonly known cancers. Zenk Pinter's first stop was CBS's The Early Show. In an interview with co-anchor Hannah Storm, Zenk Pinter revealed how a seemingly stubborn canker sore turned out to be a stage-two malignant oral cancer, requiring several surgeries to reconstruct her tongue, and months of radiation treatments. Zenk Pinter explained to Storm that she believes that her cancer was caused by the human papillomavirus. "I had absolutely none of the historic risk factors for this cancer, I never used tobacco and only drank socially," she said, referring to the two other common causes of the disease. "In fact, young Americans who have none of the historic risk factors are the fastest growing segment of oral cancer patients in the country," Brian Hill, executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation says, "and we believe the culprit behind the surge in cases is HPV16, the same virus that causes cervical cancer." Dr. Mark Lingen, Professor of Pathology at the University of Chicago School of Medicine says, "Colleen was very typical of most Americans in their lack of knowledge of oral cancer. Awareness and routine screening is particularly important, since early discovery is directly [...]

Webmaster2008-07-08T22:22:48-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

Speaking Out

11/28/2007 web-based article Jennifer Lenhart www.soapoperadigest.com Long running TV show As the World Turn's Colleen Zenk Pinter (character Barbara Ryan) spoke about her battle with tongue cancer in Digest's 11/27 issue, but her main goal is to encourage everyone to get screened. It's a quick, completely painless procedure. "You should demand a cancer screening from your denist," she advises. "They'll look in your mouth and feel down inside your jaw bone, outside and inside, upper and lower, they'll look at your tongue and throat." Here, she talks more about her initial diagnosis, and when she first decided to share her story. Soap Opera Digest: How did this all begin? Colleen Zenk Pinter: I first noticed it last summer, so it's been over a year now. [I constantly had] canker sores coming and going last summer into last fall. They finally stopped going away and started getting larger — you know how painful one is, these were multiplying. I said, "This isn't right," and that's when I called my physician to get my yearly, thinking I could get in right away, forgetting that it takes a while to book something like that. I called the second week of November and he couldn't get me in until the first week of January. I had actually talked to Eldo [Ray Estes, ATWT's key makeup artist] at work about it. I had shown him and said, 'I'm dealing with this nasty thing that won't go away.' So I went in and saw my doctor, [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:28:14-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

The Oral Cancer Foundation Issues First Research Grants

11/21/2007 Newport Beach, CA press release prnewsire.com The Oral Cancer Foundation announced today that three researchers working in areas of early oral cancer detection would be the foundation's first grant recipients. The grants, which were made as an ongoing commitment to each researcher, were awarded to Dr. Maura Gillison of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. David Wong of the University of California at Los Angeles, and Dr. Ann Gillenwater of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. "We are supporting research that moves our early discovery agenda forward," the foundation's executive director Brian Hill said. "Early detection is our first front in reducing the death rate from oral cancer, and we believe these research programs all will have a huge impact on how and when people are diagnosed with the disease. Early detection and staging is directly correlated to better long-term outcomes for patients." The disease affects more than 34,000 Americans each year, and more than 8,000 will die from it annually. At the present time two-thirds of cases are caught in the cancer's later stages when prognosis is poor. At 5 years from diagnosis survival for all stages combined is approximately 50%. While other cancers have seen a decline in incidence and death, occurrence of oral and oropharyngeal cancers have increased in recent years, 11% in 2007 alone. "Public awareness of the disease is low, and screening models used incorrectly or inconsistently are largely to blame for the high death rate," Hill said. "We could be doing [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:31:39-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

Contagious Cancers

11/12/2007 Boston, MA Scott Allen Boston Globe The almond-shaped lump on Brian Hill's throat didn't make sense to him. The doctor said it was a symptom of advanced oral cancer, but Hill had never smoked a cigarette or chewed a plug of tobacco, considered the main causes of the disease when he was diagnosed in 1997. So why was it there? Not until four years later did Hill get an explanation for his brush with death: a microbe called human papilloma virus-16 had apparently moved into his tonsils, gradually turning normal cells into cancer. Hill, now 59, had become part of a wave of relatively young nonsmokers who contracted oral cancer from the sexually transmitted virus, fueling an overall increase in new cases. Viruses such as human papilloma may be the most overlooked bad guys in the war on cancer, silent invaders that contribute to more than a dozen malignancies and may cause 15 percent of the cancer cases worldwide each year. "What we know about HPV-16 as a cancer causer is just the tip of the iceberg," said Hill, founder of the Oral Cancer Foundation, which funds research for a disease that strikes 34,000 Americans annually and is caused by the same virus that can lead to cancers of the cervix, vulva, anus, and penis. The cancer toll from germs - both viruses and bacteria - may turn out to be higher as researchers discover more of these elusive microbes and how they do their grim work. Currently, scientists [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:34:38-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

Vaccine Treatment Takes Aim At Oral Cancer

10/29/2007 web-based article Hilary Waldman cancer.uchc.edu Promising New Drug Was Originally Designed To Fight Cervical Cancer A new cervical cancer vaccine headed for FDA approval this month could also put a dent in new cases of oral cancer - one of the deadliest cancers in the United States. At least one-quarter of oral cancer cases may be linked to human papillomavirus, the same sexually transmitted bug that causes cervical cancer. "Because of this vaccine, in 10 to 15 years, we're going to find many fewer head and neck cancers, it will have a positive collateral benefit not related to its primary cervical cancer use." said Brian Hill, founder and executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation. Researchers started looking for new possible causes of oral cancer when tobacco use dropped precipitously in the United States but the incidence of oral cancer did not. About 34,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer in the United States this year, and only half of them will be alive in five years. The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that for cancer of the cervix, testicles, skin (melanoma), Hodgkins disease, a type of blood cancer and other we commonly hear about. Six years ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine looked at 253 patients with head and neck tumors and found HPV-16 - the tumor-causing strain of the virus - in 25 percent of those patients. HPV-positive tumors are most likely to occur in the throat, base of the tongue, [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:39:36-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

A New Job for Bill Clinton

10/29/2007 web-based article Cliff Kincaid Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org) My commentary on the need for Bill Clinton to take the lead in warning teenagers about the dangers of oral sex caught the eye of Brian R. Hill, the founder/ Executive Director of the Oral Cancer Foundation, Inc. He is a stage IV oral cancer survivor. On the matter of a link between HPV 16, a sexually transmitted virus, and cancer, especially oral cancer, he writes: "The real data about this has been mostly published by Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins, and the correlation between HPV 16 in particular and oropharangeal and tonsillar cancers is without doubt, ditto the oral sex /oral cancer issue. There is no doubt that the HPV's forms which have cancer causing capabilities are on the rise, and the number of young, non-smoking, oral cancer patients has risen dramatically in recent years. While the primary cause, tobacco, has had its use steadily decline for more than 10 years in the U.S., the incidence rate of oral cancer has stayed the same. This would indicate that a new etiology is replacing the old stereotypical mechanism of getting this very deadly disease. "While you mention a Swedish study, the U.S. is way ahead of others in the peer-reviewed research that shows all this to be a major issue…Though the issue of awareness is critical, and Dr. Gillison even uses the word epidemic when she discusses HPV in the U.S., it is hard to get people of celebrity and power [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:37:58-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

Dentistry: Checking for Oral Cancer

10/29/2007 Washington, D.C. Sherri Dalphonse Washingtonian (www.washingtonian.com) While the number of oral-cancer cases diagnosed annually—about 30,000 in this country—has remained steady, the victims have changed. There’s been a fivefold increase in oral cancer in people under age 40, particularly women. And while smoking and drinking are still the biggest risk factors, one-quarter of all patients are not smokers. A study by Johns Hopkins University found human papillomavirus in one-fourth of oral-cancer patients. The rise in HPV and oral sex has been linked to oral cancer in young women. “One problem,” says Brian Hill, director of the Oral Cancer Foundation and an oral-cancer survivor, “is that dentists are still looking for the stereotypical smoker” when screening for cancer. How do you know if your dentist does a thorough check for oral cancer? In an exam, Hill says, a dentist should pull out the tongue for a good look—many cancers occur at the base of the tongue qwhich can more easily be seen when pulled forward—and run a finger along the edges to feel for lumps. He or she should feel the floor of the mouth and the sides of the neck. When oral cancer is caught early, there’s an 80-percent survival rate. Because it is usually caught late, half of such patients die within five years. According to the Oral Cancer Foundation (oralcancerfoundation.org), symptoms include • a sore or lesion in the mouth that does not heal within two weeks. • a lump or thickening in the cheek. • a white [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:36:42-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

The Oral Cancer Foundation Urges HPV Vaccination for Males

10/25/2007 Newport Beach, CA Keri Kramer Forbes.com For the public health, we need to fast-track research and approvals now, says foundation On the heels of a study published this month in the journal Cancer, and recent supporting science related to HPV and oral cancer in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Oral Cancer Foundation is urging researchers to expedite investigations on the safety of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations for males, and the FDA to fast track the approval once scientific due diligence has been accomplished. “The study affirms what we have long believed, namely that the vaccine can reduce oral cancer rates if given to both males and females,” says Brian Hill, Founder and Executive Director of the foundation. Currently, the vaccine, which shields against HPV strains 6, 11, 16 and 18, is administered to girls and adolescent females to protect against cervical cancer. Deaths from cervical cancer, which number about 3,700 annually, have steadily declined due to improved methods of early detection, and a population that knows the importance of annual screenings. Oral cancer also lends itself to early detection through a simple visual and tactile examination which could easily be implemented, but does not have a nationally adopted program of public awareness and compliant professionals engaged in such a screening process. In the US, 93 people per day will develop oral cancer, and one person will die from it every hour. This is more than double the death rate of cervical cancers, and is higher than that [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:40:46-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

Son, Father Hike 110 Miles to Benefit Oral Cancer Foundation

10/10/2005 Glen Allen, VA April Karys A Glen Allen, VA, boy and his father put blood and sweat (but no tears) into an effort to memorialize a loved one and support the Oral Cancer Foundation in the process: They hiked 110 miles of the Appalachian Trail and gave the donations they raised to the California-based Foundation. “It was tough,” said Robbie Schwieder, 15, who came up with the idea of doing the trek through the Shenandoah National Park portion of the Appalachian Trail, and later asked his father to join him. “It was really brutal, physically, mentally, in every way.” But despite the 40 pound backpacks, grueling terrain, stifling heat, and blisters upon blisters, Robbie and his father, Wylie, persevered and never complained. After all, they were walking in memory of Robbie's maternal grandmother, Elaine Hegarty, who'd undergone immense suffering of a graver kind-oral cancer. Hegarty was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 1993. The dignified, independent Milwaukee resident was initially told she'd have to have a radical, disfiguring surgery. After a second opinion, she underwent a procedure during which doctors accessed the tumor from inside her mouth and removed it completely. She healed, and life returned to normal-at least for a few years. “About 6 years later she developed a second tumor inside her mouth,” said Hegarty's daughter Katie Schwieder. “They removed that one, and then she was never the same. She wore dentures that never fit properly. She was having pain a fair bit.” By the summer of 2002, [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:44:08-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

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