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Aspen Dental Practices Donate More Than $20,000 To The Oral Cancer Foundation For Oral Cancer Awareness Month

Source: www.pharmiweb.com.orgAuthor: Aspen Dental SYRACUSE, N.Y., May 31, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspen Dental–branded practices will donate $22,375 to The Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) as part of a program that contributed $5 for each ViziLite® oral cancer screening conducted during April for Oral Cancer Awareness Month. In total, more than 4,000 patients were screened across more than 550 practices in 33 states. Since 2010, Aspen Dental-branded practices have donated more than $105,000 to OCF. "Approximately 48,250 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with an oral or oropharyngeal cancer this year; and of those only about 57% will be alive in five years," said Natalie Riggs, Director of Special Projects for The Oral Cancer Foundation. In 2016 we estimate that 9500 individuals will lose their lives to oral cancers and we are grateful for the support from Aspen Dental practices in helping us raise awareness and aiding in our efforts to fight this disease." Oral cancer is frequently preceded by visible pre-malignant lesions and can be diagnosed at a much earlier stage (I or II) with ViziLite® Plus, a specially designed light technology.  When caught early and treated, the survival rate is 80 to 90 percent. "We're working to educate our patients about the risk factors, warning signs and symptoms associated with oral cancer so that we can help them catch the disease before it progresses," said Dr. Murali Lakireddy, a general dentist who owns Aspen Dental offices in Ohio. "Many of our patients do not think about oral cancer when they go to [...]

2016-06-16T10:28:42-07:00June, 2016|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|
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Nivolumab Demonstrated Survival Benefit, Good Tolerance in Refractory HNSCC

Source: www.asco.orgAuthor: Tim Donald, ELS In the phase III comparative CheckMate 141 trial, nivolumab demonstrated a “significant improval in survival” in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), compared with therapy of the investigator’s choice, according to Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, FACS, of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (Abstract 6009). There were fewer treatment-related adverse events with the PD-1 inhibitor than with investigator’s choice therapy, Dr. Ferris said, and nivolumab stabilized patient-reported quality-of-life outcome measures, whereas the investigator’s choice therapy led to meaningful declines in function and worsening of symptoms. Dr. Robert L. Ferris “Nivolumab is a new standard-of-care option for patients with refractory or metastatic HNSCC after platinum-based therapy,” Dr. Ferris said. Dr. Ferris presented the trial results at the “Harnessing the Immune System in Head and Neck Cancer: Evolving Standards in Metastatic Disease” Clinical Science Symposium on June 6. He noted that in this trial of patients whose disease had progressed after platinum-based therapy, nivolumab doubled the 1-year overall survival (OS) rate, with 36.0% OS for the immunotherapeutic drug compared with 16.6% for the investigator’s choice therapy. These top-line results were presented at the 2016 American Association of Cancer Research meeting1; Dr. Ferris presented data the additional endpoints of quality of life, correlative biomarkers, and safety. There is an extremely poor prognosis for patients with platinum-refractory recurrent or metastatic HNSCC, with median OS of 6 months or fewer. Previous research, by Dr. Ferris and others, has shown that HNSCC can express T-cell [...]

2016-06-07T16:35:54-07:00June, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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HPV is changing the face of head and neck cancers

Source: www.healio.comAuthor: Christine Cona A drastic increase in the number of HPV-associated oropharynx cancers, particularly those of the tonsil and base of tongue, has captured the attention of head and neck oncologists worldwide. In February, at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz., Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, professor and Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at The Ohio State University in Columbus, presented data that showed that the proportion of all head and neck squamous cell cancers that were of the oropharynx — which are most commonly HPV-positive cancers — increased from 18% in 1973 to 32% in 2005. Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at The Ohio State University, said screening for HPV in the head and neck is years behind cervical screening for HPV.   In addition, studies from the United States, Europe, Denmark and Australia indicate that HPV-positive patients have a more than twofold increased cancer survival than HPV-negative patients, according to Gillison. With the rising incidence of HPV-related oropharynx cancers, it will soon be the predominant type of cancer in the oral or head and neck region, according to Andy Trotti, MD, director of radiation oncology clinical research, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, in Tampa, Fla. “We should be focusing on HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer because it will dominate the field of head and neck cancers for many years,” he said during an interview with HemOnc Today. “It is certainly an important population for which to continue to [...]

2016-06-03T11:11:05-07:00June, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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Rodeo rider raising awareness of chewing tobacco and oral cancer

Source: www.krcrtv.comAuthor: Danielle Radin  REDDING, Calif. - The Redding Rodeo kicked off Wednesday night with events like barrel racing, cattle roping and mutton busting. Professional barrel racer, Carly Twisselman said chewing tobacco is prominent at rodeos. She's teamed up with the Oral Cancer Foundation to try to change that. "We want to show children that you can follow your dreams, be who you want to be, pursue being a rodeo athlete and not chew tobacco," said Twisselman. Twisselman competes in rodeos across the country and sees chewing tobacco time and time again. She's teaching children chewing tobacco is not the 'cool thing to do.' She also wears letting on her sleeves every race that reads, "Be smart, don't start." She also has a brother who chews and had a health scare from it. "My brother's had signs of cancer of the mouth from chewing," said Twisselman. "  "I just think that's the wrong message we should be sending to this children." According to the oral cancer foundation, there will be about 48,000 new cases of oral cancer in 2016 in the United States. 75 percent of all oral cancer patients use tobacco. They estimate nearly 10,000 people in the United States will die from oral cancer in 2016.  

2016-05-19T11:39:43-07:00May, 2016|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|
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In an era of rapidly proliferating, precisely targeted treatments, every cancer case has to be played by ear.

Source: www.nytimes.comAuthor: Sidhartha Mukherjee  Illustration by Cristiana Couceiro. Photograph by Ansel Adams, via the National Archives, College Park, Md.   The bone-marrow biopsy took about 20 minutes. It was 10 o’clock on an unusually chilly morning in New York in April, and Donna M., a self-possessed 78-year-old woman, had flown in from Chicago to see me in my office at Columbia University Medical Center. She had treated herself to orchestra seats for “The Humans” the night before, and was now waiting in the room as no one should be asked to wait: pants down, spine curled, knees lifted to her chest — a grown woman curled like a fetus. I snapped on sterile gloves while the nurse pulled out a bar cart containing a steel needle the length of an index finger. The rim of Donna’s pelvic bone was numbed with a pulse of anesthetic, and I drove the needle, as gently as I could, into the outer furl of bone. A corkscrew of pain spiraled through her body as the marrow was pulled, and then a few milliliters of red, bone-flecked sludge filled the syringe. It was slightly viscous, halfway between liquid and gel, like the crushed pulp of an overripe strawberry. I had been treating Donna in collaboration with my colleague Azra Raza for six years. Donna has a preleukemic syndrome called myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, which affects the bone marrow and blood. It is a mysterious disease with few known treatments. Human bone marrow is normally a [...]

2016-05-16T16:34:05-07:00May, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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California Raises Smoking Age To 21

Source: www.huffingtonpost.comAuthor: Huffington Post Staff  The law makes it the second state to raise the minimum age to 21, following Hawaii.   SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California will raise the legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21 from 18 under a bill signed on Wednesday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, part of a package of anti-smoking measures that also regulates electronic cigarettes. Under five bills signed into law on Wednesday, California will ban the sale of vaping products or tobacco to anyone under the age of 21, imposing a fine of up to $5,000 against companies that violate the law. “It is long past due for California to update our approach to tobacco,” said Steven Larson, president of the California Medical Association. “There has been an alarming rise in the use of e-cigarettes by teens, putting them at risk for lifelong addiction.” Under the measures, electronic cigarettes will be regulated like traditional ones. That means that wherever cigarettes are banned, such as in restaurants, workplaces and public areas, use of e-cigarettes will also be prohibited. The state will also expand its funding for anti-smoking programs under the bills. Brown stopped short of allowing local counties to impose their own tobacco taxes, noting in his veto message that several proposed new taxes would be placed before voters on the November ballot. *This news story was resourced by the Oral Cancer Foundation, and vetted for appropriateness and accuracy.

2016-05-05T12:59:24-07:00May, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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Baidu Under Investigation After Cancer Patient’s Death

Source: www.fortune.comAuthor: Scott Cendrowski  Baidu, the dominant search engine in China, is being investigated by government regulators after social media users criticized the quality of medical ads appearing in its searches. Chinese social media over the weekend gave widespread exposure to the story of Wei Zexi, a young cancer patient whose family pooled together more than $30,000 for his treatments at a government hospital he found through a Baidu search. The hospital marketed an innovative treatment for synovial sarcoma, the rare form of cancer Wei suffered from. Following an unsuccessful treatment and Wei’s death in April, reports spread that the treatment was much less effective than the hospital had advertised. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) sent investigators to Baidu today, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency Baidu has endured criticism recently for similar instances in which dubious medical practices were promoted in paid search results. Analysts have estimated around one quarter of its revenues come from medical and health-care advertisers. “We deeply regret the death of Zexi,” a Baidu spokeswoman said today, adding that the search engine had launched its own internal investigation of the matter. *This news story was resourced by the Oral Cancer Foundation, and vetted for appropriateness and accuracy.  

2016-05-03T15:05:07-07:00May, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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Drug Target in Rare, Lethal Glandular Cancer Discovered

Source: www.dddmag.comAuthor: Yale University  Using a novel cell culture approach, Yale Cancer Center researchers have discovered critical vulnerabilities in adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a rare and lethal glandular cancer with a high recurrence rate and few treatment options. The findings, published April 15th in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, offer data that ACC and similar cancers could be treated with already available drugs. ACC most often occurs in the salivary glands but can originate in the breast, trachea, skin, or other sites. Survival rates at five years are close to 90percent but drop significantly after that with just 40percent surviving at 15 years after diagnosis. It is a slow-growing cancer that affects about 1,200 people each year, with few symptoms in early stages. Aside from surgery, there are few treatments for ACC, which until now has proven largely resistant to radiation therapy. It is this resistance that prompted Yale researchers to develop a novel cell culture technique to isolate and study ACC cancer stem cells, known to be the root of tumor growth, aggressiveness, and resistance to chemotherapy and radiation, said co-senior author Sergey Ivanov, research scientist in surgery (otolaryngology). “Within ACC cells, we found the especially aggressive cancer stem cells. As important, we found the Achilles heel of these cells, which is their addiction to NOTCH1, a signaling molecule that helps these cells to survive therapy and multiply,” Ivanov said. “Fortunately, cancer stem cells can be killed by blocking NOTCH1 production.” The similarities between the ACC stem cells and [...]

2016-04-21T10:12:16-07:00April, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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FDA Spends $36 Million on Anti-Chewing Tobacco Ad Campaign

Source: www.freebeacon.comAuthor: Elizabeth Harrington Cans of smokeless tobacco sit in the Tampa Bay Rays dugout before a baseball game between the Rays and the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday, April 14, 2010, in Baltimore. After hounding Major League Baseball and its players union over steroids, Congress now wants the sport to ban smokeless tobacco. (AP Photo/Rob Carr) The Food and Drug Administration is spending $36 million on an anti-chewing tobacco advertising campaign targeted at white male teenagers in the midwest. The federal agency announced Tuesday it is expanding its “Real Cost” anti-tobacco campaign to “educate rural, white male teenagers” and convince them to stop dipping. “Smokeless tobacco use is culturally ingrained in many rural communities,” the FDA said. “For many, it has become a rite of passage, with these teenagers seeing smokeless tobacco used by role models, such as fathers, grandfathers, older brothers, and community leaders.” The campaign will run television, radio, and print advertisements, as well as put up public signs and billboards and post on social media. An FDA spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon that the total cost for the campaign is $36 million, which will be financed through taxes on tobacco manufacturers. Paid ads will cost $20 million, and the remaining budget will cover “research, strategic planning, creative development, and contract management.” The agency is also partnering with two dozen minor league baseball teams in the midwest that will host anti-chewing tobacco events and feature advertisements from the campaign. “Amplification of messaging from the campaign will [...]

2016-04-21T10:03:14-07:00April, 2016|Oral Cancer News|
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