Source: City A.M. Date: February 14th, 2022 Author: Michiel Williams A Merseyside man has become the first in the UK to receive a ‘vaccine’ that is hoped will stop his recurring head and neck cancer from returning, in a clinical research trial which may help bring further ground-breaking treatments for the disease. The clinical research team at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre has given patient Graham Booth an injection of a therapy tailor-made to his personal DNA and designed to help his own immune system ward off cancer permanently. Graham first had head and neck cancer in 2011 and it then returned four times, each time meaning he needed grueling treatment, including facial surgery, reconstruction and radiotherapy. He is now hoping this new treatment – part of the Transgene clinical research study – will mean it does not come back. Dad-of-five Graham, 54, will have a year-long course of immunotherapy injections in a bid to keep him cancer-free, part of a research project designed to reduce deaths and recurrence in head and neck cancers, including of the throat, neck, mouth and tongue. Graham, of West Kirkby, said he was not worried about being the first person in the UK to receive this pioneering treatment and that it “opened new doorways” which gave him hope that the cancer would not come back. Graham said: “When I had my first cancer treatment in 2011, I was under the impression that the cancer would not return. My biggest fear was realized in 2016 when [...]

Source: National Geographic Date: January 26th, 2022 Author: Michael Grashko Featured Image by National Geographic: The Human Organ Atlas project, an international team including ESRF staff scientist Paul Tafforeau, has used HiP-CT to scan the organs of COVID-19 victims, including their brains. HiP-CT scans can zoom in from a whole-organ scan to provide a cellular view of regions of interest. When Paul Tafforeau saw his first experimental scans of a COVID-19 victim’s lung, he thought he had failed. A paleontologist by training, Tafforeau had been laboring with a team strewn across Europe for months to turn a particle accelerator in the French Alps into a revolutionary medical scanning tool. It was the end of May 2020, and scientists were anxious for a better view of the ways human organs were being ravaged by COVID-19. Tafforeau had been tasked with developing a technique that could make use of the powerful x-rays generated at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. He’d pushed boundaries on high-resolution x-rays of rock-hard fossils and desiccated mummies as an ESRF staff scientist. Now, he was dismayed by a lump of soft, squishy tissue. But when his colleagues caught their first glimpse of the lung scans, they felt something else: awe. The images presented them with richer detail than any medical CT scan they’d seen before, allowing them to bridge a stubborn gap in how scientists and doctors can visualize—and make sense of—human organs. “In anatomy textbooks, when you see, This is the large scale, [...]

Source: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Date: January 20th, 2022 Robert Rosenfeld thought the lump he felt in his neck in late 2018 was just a symptom of a cold that wouldn’t go away. He visited an ear, nose, and throat specialist who saw nothing upon first examination, but Robert knew something was wrong and asked for a CT scan. The specialist called him with the bad news: It was almost certainly cancer. A biopsy confirmed he had stage 2 cancer at the base of his tongue (classified as oral cancer) and 2 nearby lymph nodes. The tumor was positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV). Robert, then a 69-year-old car salesman on Long Island, met with cancer doctors near his hometown of Hauppauge, New York, to learn about treatment options. He realized he faced a tough road: Standard treatment would be 7 weeks of radiation, during which he also would receive 3 rounds of chemotherapy. The standard radiation dose would likely cause mouth sores, difficulty swallowing, dry mouth (from damage to salivary glands), loss of taste, and nausea. Robert wanted a second opinion, and his medical oncologist strongly recommended Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. When Robert called, he was able to get in to see radiation oncologist C. Jillian Tsai the very next day. “When I met Dr. Tsai, she was amazing,” Robert says. “She told me what I was up against but also that the cancer I had was curable.” There was another major plus: Dr. Tsai was able [...]

Date: December 2nd, 2021 Authors: Dr. Parul Dua Makkar & Dr. Sanjukta Mohanta Source: Dentistry Today Featured Image courtesy of Dentistry Today: Dr. Manu Dua Dr. Manu Dua, a dentist practicing in Calgary, Alberta, discovered a lesion on his tongue around his 33rd birthday. He showed a photo of it to his sister, Parul, who is a dentist practicing in New York. “Get it biopsied,” she pleaded. He replied, “It can’t be cancer. I’m too young.” Less than 2 years later, Dr. Manu Dua died from oral cancer.  He was 34. Manu had no risk factors for oral cancer.  He was young and didn’t smoke. He only had an occasional drink. He was athletic and had a healthy diet.  No one would suspect that the lesion on his tongue was cancer, not even him, not even the oral surgeon who thought it was lichen planus and prescribed him a steroid. His symptoms worsened: trouble speaking, pain on eating, and difficulty sleeping. Then came the devastating biopsy result – Stage 2 squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. The cancer was treated by removing the left half of Manu’s tongue and the lymph nodes from the left side of his neck. His tongue was repaired using the radial artery from his left arm and skin from his right thigh. He had to learn to speak, chew and swallow again. He recovered quickly and returned to the dental office that he recently opened. Less than a year later, he noticed swelling on the left [...]