Charlotte Parker, Author at Oral Cancer News

FDA Warns Against So-Called “Cancer Cure”

Source: http://www.curetoday.com/articles/fda-warns-against-socalled-cancer-cure Published: 01/13/2017 Author: BRIELLE URCIUOLI The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just added another agent, PNC-27, to the growing list of drugs that falsely claim to treat or cure cancer. An FDA lab recently found the bacteria Variovorax paradoxus in PNC-27, a product that is claiming to treat and cure all cancers, claiming to affect lung cancer as affectively as head and neck cancer. Though no illness or serious adverse events were reported to the FDA, contact with contaminated samples can lead to life-threatening infections, especially in vulnerable populations, such as young children, elderly people, pregnant women and people who have weakened immune systems, according to a statement released by the FDA. “In general, consumers should be cautious of products marketed and sold online claiming to treat, cure or prevent any disease. Products claiming to treat, cure or prevent disease, but are not proven safe and effective for those purposes not only defraud consumers of money, they can lead to delays in getting proper diagnosis and treatment of a potentially serious condition,” Kristofer Baumgartner, FDA spokesperson, said in an interview with CURE. PNC-27 is being dosed in multiple ways, such as a nebulized solution, intravenous solution, vaginal suppository or rectal suppository. The FDA is urging people not to purchase or use PNC-27, which is neither FDA evaluated or approved. Patients should consult with their licensed health care providers before deciding on a treatment plan, and if they have already taken PNC-27, they should see their doctor as [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-01-17T10:39:51-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

NCI-Designated Cancer Centers Issue Statement in Support of New CDC Recommendations on HPV Vaccination

Source: The ASCO Post Posted: 1/11/2017 The 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers have issued a joint statement in support of recently revised recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve national vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV). According to the CDC, incidence rates of HPV-associated cancers have continued to rise, with approximately 39,000 new HPV-associated cancers now diagnosed each year in the United States. Although HPV vaccines can prevent the majority of cervical, anal, oropharyngeal, and other genital cancers, vaccination rates remain low across the United States, with just 41.9% of girls and 28.1% of boys completing the recommended vaccine series. New Recommendations The new guidelines from the CDC recommend that children under age 15 should receive 2 doses of the 9-valent HPV vaccine at least 6 months apart. Adolescents and young adults older than 14 should continue to complete the 3-dose series. Research shows there are a number of barriers to overcome to improve vaccination rates, including a lack of strong recommendations from physicians and parents not understanding that this vaccine protects against several types of cancer. In an effort to overcome these barriers, NCI-designated cancer centers have organized a continuing series of national summits to share new research, discuss best practices, and identify collective action toward improving vaccination rates. The original joint statement, published in January 2016, was the major recommendation from a summit hosted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in November 2015, which brought together experts from the [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-01-11T16:57:19-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Immunotherapies Form New Frontier in Treating Head and Neck Cancers

Source: OncLive.com Date: January 2nd, 2017 In August 2016, the FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with platinum-refractory squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).1 Not only was it the first immunotherapy approved for head and neck cancer (HNC), but it marked the first new drug approval for HNC in the United States in 20 years. “Now we have an agent that really changes the paradigm—a new class of treatment—and we are seeing amazing benefit in some patients,” said Tanguy Seiwert, MD, during an OncLive Peer Exchange® panel held during the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting. Less than a month later, the menu of immunotherapy options expanded as the FDA approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic SCCHN with disease progression on or after a platinum-based therapy. During the Peer Exchange, the panelists provided an overview of the immunotherapy terrain in HNC, a discussion that was filled with considerable hope and excitement. “When we try immunotherapies in the second-line setting, we see objective responses—sometimes deep, clinically meaningful, extremely durable responses—and we’re beginning to think that maybe, on some occasions, we may be able to cure patients with relapsed metastatic head and neck cancer,” said Kevin Harrington, MD, PhD. This is especially remarkable since such patients have generally had a survival of ≤1 year. The panelists concurred that the care of patients with HNC will evolve significantly over the next 5 to 10 years, as the tip of the immunotherapy [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-01-11T16:58:01-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Reducing Radiation Successfully Treats HPV-Positive Oropharynx Cancers and Minimizes Side Effects

Source: Yale Cancer Center, http://www.newswise.com/articles/reducing-radiation-successfully-treats-hpv-positive-oropharynx-cancers-and-minimizes-side-effects Released: 12/26/2016 Newswise — Human papillomavirus-positive oropharynx cancers (cancers of the tonsils and back of the throat) are on rise. After radiation treatment, patients often experience severe, lifelong swallowing, eating, and nutritional issues. However, new clinical trial research shows reducing radiation for some patients with HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas can maintain high cure rates while sparing some of these late toxicities. “We found there are some patients have very high cure rates with reduced doses of radiation,” said Barbara Burtness, MD, Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), Yale Cancer Center, Disease Research Team Leader for the Head and Neck Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital, and the chair of the ECOG-ACRIN head and neck committee. “Radiation dose reduction resulted in significantly improved swallowing and nutritional status,” she said. The study, published in the December 26 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that patients treated with reduced radiation had less difficulty swallowing solids (40 percent versus 89 percent of patients treated with standard doses of radiation) or impaired nutrition (10 percent versus 44 percent of patients treated with regular doses of radiation). “Today, many younger patients are presenting with HPV-associated squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx,” said Dr. Burtness. “And while traditional chemoradiation has demonstrated good tumor control and survival rates for patients, too often they encounter unpleasant outcomes that can include difficulty swallowing solid foods, impaired nutrition, aspiration and feeding tube dependence,” said Dr. Burtness. “Younger patients may have to deal with these [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-03-29T19:04:26-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Why won’t our doctors face up to the dangers of radiotherapy?

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1089091/Why-wont-doctors-face-dangers-radiotherapy.html Author: Isla Whitcroft It's a life-saver for thousands - but the side-effects can be devastating. A year after he'd undergone treatment for cancer of the tonsils, Richard Wayman felt a painful tingling in his legs. Within weeks, the 59-year- old shopkeeper was struggling to walk. He was admitted to hospital, where doctors carried out scans, X-rays and tests. 'The scans revealed lesions on my lungs, which raised fears that the cancer had spread, so I was admitted to another hospital for a biopsy and, as a result, contracted MRSA and pneumonia,' recalls Richard, from Colchester in Essex. 'From 11-and-a-half stone I went down to eight-and-a-half stone. I thought I was never going to get out of there.' Finally, the lung lesions were diagnosed as a side-effect of the radiotherapy Richard had undergone for his cancer. However, his problems only got worse: a few weeks after a routine tooth extraction, the bone around the extraction started to crumble and become infected. Within months he had an open weeping wound, running from his lower cheek through his jaw and into his mouth. The diagnosis: bone necrosis as a direct result of radiotherapy damage to the jaw. Richard is one of the many thousands of cancer survivors who have developed terrible conditions as a result of the radiotherapy treatment that helped save them. Around 4 to 5 per cent of all head and neck cancer patients suffer problems with swallowing or breathing, fistulas (open holes) in the jaw and gum, loss [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-03-29T19:04:40-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

US Surgeon General Says Vaping Among Young People is a ‘Major Public Health Concern’

Report calls for higher taxes and stronger regulations on the e-cigarette industry Author: Amar Toor Source: http: www.theverge.com The US surgeon general says that the increased use of e-cigarettes among young people represents a “major public health concern,” The Washington Post reports, and is calling on lawmakers to implement regulations that would curb their use among American youth. In a report to be released on Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says that although there is a need for further research on the long-term effects of e-cigarettes, exposure to nicotine through vaping poses serious health risks to young people. “We know enough right now to say that youth and young adults should not be using e-cigarettes or any other tobacco product, for that matter,” Murthy said in an interview with the Post. “The key bottom line here is that the science tells us the use of nicotine-containing products by youth, including e-cigarettes, is unsafe.” “Young adults should not be using e-cigarettes or any other tobacco product.” The report, which focuses on vaping among young people, acknowledges that e-cigarettes are less harmful than traditional cigarettes, as previous research has shown. But the surgeon general says there is not strong evidence that the devices are effective at helping people to quit smoking cigarettes, and concludes that vaping is “strongly associated” to the use of other tobacco products. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 3 million American teenagers used e-cigarettes in 2015, marking a ten-fold increase over [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-03-29T19:04:55-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Why the FDA Wants More Control over Some Lab Tests

The FDA finds that many so-called laboratory-derived tests may actually harm patients By Charles Schmidt | Scientific American December 2016 Issue Every year in the U.S., doctor's offices and hospitals order billions of laboratory tests to measure everything from cholesterol levels in the blood to the presence of a gene thought to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Physicians and patients typically assume that they can trust the results of these tests. And most of the time they can. But not all lab tests are equally reliable, and faulty ones can have serious consequences. Sometimes they fail to detect life-threatening conditions. Other times they indicate a problem that does not exist, which can lead to unneeded, perhaps even dangerous treatments. Through a quirk of regulatory history, many such tests are not subject to the same medical standards as other tools used to identify risk for disease or to definitively diagnose a condition. These are called lab-developed tests, or LDTs, defined as tests that are manufactured and interpreted by the same individual lab that designed them—in contrast to, say, a quick strep test meant to be used and understood by a wide variety of personnel in doctor's offices everywhere. Most people first encounter an LDT during a checkup when the physician is faced with a diagnostic dilemma that cannot be resolved by widely available blood tests. The trouble is, experts believe many of these tests are not useful, and some may even cause harm by convincing too many people that [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-11-28T10:49:07-07:00November, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

We Now Know Exactly How Many DNA Mutations Smoking Causes

Every 50 cigarettes you smoke gives you one extra DNA mutation per lung cell. Source: The Verge Author: James Vincent A common tactic for people trying to give up smoking is to quantify exactly how much damage — financial or physical — each cigarette or pack of cigarette does. How much does smoking cost you per month, for example, or how much shorter is your life going to be for each drag you take? Well, a new study into the dangers of smoking now lets us measure this damage right down to the number of mutations in your DNA. A research team led by scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory compared tissue samples from 1,063 non-smokers and 2,490 smokers, examining each individual's DNA to look for mutations. They found that for every 50 cigarettes smoked, there is one extra DNA mutation for each cell in the lungs. Over the course of a year, this means that someone who smokes a pack a day (20 cigarettes) has 150 extra mutations per cell in the lung, 97 per larynx cell, 23 per mouth cell, 18 per bladder cell, and six per liver cell. These changes to the cells aren’t dangerous in themselves, but each one has the potential to turn into a cancerous growth. "Smoking is like playing Russian roulette: the more you play, the higher the chance the mutations will hit the right genes and you will develop cancer," Ludmil Alexandrov, the co-lead author of the study, told the New Scientist. [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-11-04T09:43:28-07:00November, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Smokeless Tobacco Use and the Risk of Head and Neck Cancer: Pooled Analysis of US Studies in the INHANCE Consortium.

Source: www.pubmed.gov Author: Wyss AB, Gillison ML, Olshan AF Abstract Previous studies on smokeless tobacco use and head and neck cancer (HNC) have found inconsistent and often imprecise estimates, with limited control for cigarette smoking. Using pooled data from 11 US case-control studies (1981-2006) of oral, pharyngeal, and laryngeal cancers (6,772 cases and 8,375 controls) in the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) Consortium, we applied hierarchical logistic regression to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for ever use, frequency of use, and duration of use of snuff and chewing tobacco separately for never and ever cigarette smokers. Ever use (versus never use) of snuff was strongly associated with HNC among never cigarette smokers (odds ratio (OR) = 1.71, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08, 2.70), particularly for oral cavity cancers (OR = 3.01, 95% CI: 1.63, 5.55). Although ever (versus never) tobacco chewing was weakly associated with HNC among never cigarette smokers (OR = 1.20, 95% CI: 0.81, 1.77), analyses restricted to cancers of the oral cavity showed a stronger association (OR = 1.81, 95% CI: 1.04, 3.17). Few or no associations between each type of smokeless tobacco and HNC were observed among ever cigarette smokers, possibly reflecting residual confounding by smoking. Smokeless tobacco use appears to be associated with HNC, especially oral cancers, with snuff being more strongly associated than chewing tobacco. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. *This news story [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-10-31T14:31:13-07:00October, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

America’s Most Popular ‘Legal’ Drug is Responsible for 25% of ALL Cancer

Source: www.thefreethoughtproject.com Author: John Vibes There are many factors contributing to the massive rise in cancer cases in the US, but according to a new study from the American Cancer Society, cigarette smoke is by far the leading cause. The study found that roughly 25% of all cancer deaths could be attributed to cigarette smoking. Although cigarette smoking has waned somewhat in recent years, nearly 40 million adults in the U.S. currently smoke cigarettes. The CDC says cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., responsible for more than 480,000 deaths annually. According to the study: We estimate that at least 167 133 cancer deaths in the United States in 2014 (28.6% of all cancer deaths; 95% CI, 28.2%-28.8%) were attributable to cigarette smoking. Among men, the proportion of cancer deaths attributable to smoking ranged from a low of 21.8% in Utah (95% CI, 19.9%-23.5%) to a high of 39.5% in Arkansas (95% CI, 36.9%-41.7%), but was at least 30% in every state except Utah. Among women, the proportion ranged from 11.1% in Utah (95% CI, 9.6%-12.3%) to 29.0% in Kentucky (95% CI, 27.2%-30.7%) and was at least 20% in all states except Utah, California, and Hawaii. Nine of the top 10 ranked states for men and 6 of the top 10 ranked states for women were located in the South. In men, smoking explained nearly 40% of cancer deaths in the top 5 ranked states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky). In women, [...]

Charlotte Parker2016-10-31T12:31:03-07:00October, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

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