Charlotte Parker, Author at Oral Cancer News

Giving chew the boot: Rodeo riders lead oral cancer awareness campaign

Source: mohavedailynews.comAuthor: DK McDonald LAUGHLIN — Rodeo professionals Carly Twisselman and Cody Kiser are bringing something extra to their competition at the Avi Stampede PRCA Rodeo this weekend. They are bringing a message to kids. The public faces of the “Be Smart, Don’t Start” tobacco use awareness campaign, Twisselman and Kiser are sponsored by The Oral Cancer Foundation. “We’re the first charity to ever be the exclusive sponsors of any rodeo competitors,” said Brian Hill, founder and executive director of The Oral Cancer Foundation. “We go to the rodeos with Carly and Cody to get the word out to kids. “As in most things, if we can catch kids early and can show them good role models like Carly and Cody, who are fierce competitors and great people, they can see that tobacco doesn’t have to be a part of being a great cowboy or cowgirl.” The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and tobacco have a history; until 2009 the PRCA accepted tobacco sponsorship money to fund the sport. “Now, the PRCA disassociated itself with spit tobacco companies back in 2009 and they’re no longer financial sponsors of rodeo,” said Hill. “It was really a great thing for PRCA to do. That being said, the people who attend and the competitors themselves still tend to be heavy users of tobacco, spit tobacco and cigarettes.” Spit tobacco, which can refer to smokeless tobacco, dip, snuff, chew, and chewing tobacco, according to the OCF, can cause gum disease, tooth decay, and white patches and [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-03-13T11:00:58-07:00March, 2015|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

NIH-funded study finds new potential drug targets by uncovering a range of molecular alterations in head and neck cancers

Source: www.nih.govAuthor: Staff Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have discovered genomic differences — with potentially important clinical implications — in head and neck cancers caused by infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States, and the number of HPV-related head and neck cancers has been growing. Almost every sexually active person will acquire HPV at some point in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers also uncovered new smoking-related cancer subtypes and potential new drug targets, and found numerous genomic similarities with other cancer types. Taken together, this study’s findings may provide more detailed explanations of how HPV infection and smoking play roles in head and neck cancer risk and disease development, and offer potential novel diagnostic and treatment directions. The study is the most comprehensive examination to date of genomic alterations in head and neck cancers. The results were published online Jan. 28, 2015 in the journal Nature. TCGA is jointly supported and managed by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both parts of the National Institutes of Health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved HPV vaccines should be able to prevent the cancers caused by HPV infection in head and neck cancers and elsewhere, including anal cancer, whose incidence has also been increasing. However, these vaccines work by preventing new infections, and the long interval between infection and cancer development make it [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-03-10T10:11:49-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Band Announces Iron Maiden Singer is Battling Tongue Cancer

Source: usatoday.comAuthor: Maria Puente Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson is being treated for cancer of the tongue, the heavy metal band announced on its website Thursday. But it was caught early, seven weeks of chemotherapy and radiation have just been completed, and a full recovery is expected, the announcement said. "Bruce is doing very well considering the circumstances and the whole team are very positive," it concluded. The announcement said that before Christmas, Dickinson visited his doctor for a routine check-up. This led to tests and biopsies, which revealed a small cancerous tumor at the back of his tongue. "As the tumor was caught in the early stages, the prognosis thankfully is extremely good," the announcement said. "Bruce's medical team fully expect him to make a complete recovery with the all-clear envisaged by late May. "It will then take a further few months for Bruce to get back to full fitness. In the meantime we would ask for your patience, understanding and respect for Bruce and his family's privacy until we update everyone by the end of May." Dickinson, 56, joined the British megastar band in the early 1980s, and is also a commercial airline pilot. Iron Maiden's hits include Run to the Hills and The Number of the Beast. Last year, the band announced that Clive Burr, former drummer with Iron Maiden, had died in his London home in March. He was 56 and had multiple sclerosis. *This news story was resourced by the Oral Cancer Foundation, and vetted for appropriateness and accuracy.

Charlotte Parker2015-02-20T11:59:27-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Related Cancers Increase in Men

Source: scientificamerican.comAuthor: Robin Lloyd A vaccine to protect against the most dangerous strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), which cause almost all cervical cancers, as well as many cases of other cancers and genital warts in both sexes, won the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nearly nine years ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends that all boys and girls aged 11 or 12 receive the shots. Vaccination campaigns, aimed largely at girls and women, have fallen short of expectations. By 2013 just over half of U.S. females aged 13 to 17 had received at least one dose of either the Gardasil or Cervarix vaccine. For males, that figure was a disappointing 35 percent. Now head and neck cancers associated with the virus are on the rise, leading some experts to recommend that a gender-neutral or male-centric approach might be more effective. HPV is the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease in the U.S. and worldwide, infecting just about all men and women at some point in their lives. Although most people clear the virus naturally, persistent infections with some strains can lead to cancer—usually cervical or oropharyngeal (affecting the back of the throat, tonsils and back of the tongue). HPV-associated cancers make up 3.3 percent of all cancer cases among women and 2 percent of all such cases among men annually in the latest available figures, yet the incidence of virally instigated oropharyngeal and anal cancers is increasing. Ohio State University medical oncologist and epidemiologist Maura [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-18T10:56:24-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Vaccine Linked to Less-Risky Behavior

Source: torontosun.comAuthor: Roxanne Nelson, Reuters Contrary to concerns that getting vaccinated against human papilloma virus (HPV) will lead young people to have more or riskier sex, a new study in England finds less risky behaviour among young women who got the HPV vaccine. "To my knowledge no studies have shown that HPV vaccination increases risky sexual behavior among young women and some of these studies have shown this (less risky behaviour) is also the case outside of the UK," said Dr. Laura Sadler of the University of Manchester, who led the study. It's possible that getting vaccinated led to better education about sexual health, Sadler and her colleagues write in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. Sadler and other experts say it's also possible that young women who are already less likely to take risks are the ones who are more likely to get vaccinated. HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections and causes the majority of cervical cancers. The virus has also been linked to anal and throat cancers. Two vaccines, Cervarix and Gardasil, are now available that protect against strains of HPV that cause most cervical cancers. Even though public health officials recommend that girls and young women be vaccinated against HPV, some parents have hesitated, fearing that it could encourage sexual activity or unsafe sex. For their study, Sadler's team reviewed the medical records of 363 women born in 1990 or later who attended an English clinic. Almost two-thirds of the young [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-18T10:46:04-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

New research shows possibility of cure for HPV positive throat cancer patients

Source: Eurek Alert! The Global Source for Science News Nice, France: Patients with cancer of the throat caused by the Human Papilloma virus (HPV+) have a better prognosis than those who are negative for the virus (HPV-). Now, for the first time, researchers have shown with convincing evidence that a group of patients with HPV+ cancer of the oropharynx (the part of the throat located behind the mouth, that makes up the region of the tonsils and the back part of the tongue where it connects to the swallowing part of the throat), can be cured in some cases even after disease has spread to distant organs in the body, like the lungs. Dr Sophie Huang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Canada, will tell the 5th International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) today (Friday) that her research has shown that, following intensive treatment, certain patients with HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) and distant metastases (tumours appearing in an organ not directly related to the primary cancer site) can survive for more than two years without further evidence of disease. Such cancers are usually considered to be incurable, and the goal of treatment is usually limited to symptom control. "Our research, the largest study to date to explore survival predictors for metastatic HPV+ and HPV- oropharyngeal cancer patients, has shown that cure is a realistic goal in those patients with oligometastasis - metastases involving five or fewer [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-13T08:37:16-07:00February, 2015|OCF In The News|

A Study Finds Smoking’s Toll On Your Body and Health Worse Than Previously Thought

Source: nytimes.comAuthor: Denise Grady However bad you thought smoking was, it’s even worse. A new study adds at least five diseases and 60,000 deaths a year to the toll taken by tobacco in the United States. Before the study, smoking was already blamed for nearly half a million deaths a year in this country from 21 diseases, including 12 types of cancer. The new findings are based on health data from nearly a million people who were followed for 10 years. In addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, the researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco. Even though people are already barraged with messages about the dangers of smoking, researchers say it is important to let the public know that there is yet more bad news. “The smoking epidemic is still ongoing, and there is a need to evaluate how smoking is hurting us as a society, to support clinicians and policy making in public health,” said Brian D. Carter, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society and the first author of an article about the study, which appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. “It’s not a done story.” In an editorial accompanying the article, Dr. Graham A. Colditz, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said the new findings showed [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-12T11:56:41-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

New Model Proposed for More Accurate Prediction of Treatment Outcomes for HPV Related Throat Cancer Patients

Source: news-medical.netAuthor: Researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network Researchers at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre are proposing a new model to enable doctors to predict outcomes more accurately for patients with throat cancers specifically caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). The findings are published online today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study investigators, Dr. Brian O'Sullivan, Lead, Head and Neck Cancer Site Group and Shao-Hui Huang, Research and Clinical Radiation Therapist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, have determined that a new model for classifying the most frequently seen throat cancers in our geographic location is needed. This classification incorporates individual patient factors including age and their smoking status with the traditional classification of the extent of disease, to offer a more personalized approach to predict outcomes and guide treatment. "Our study shows that the current model derived for smoking and alcohol related cancers is not suited for throat cancer caused by HPV, a burgeoning throat cancer population in the Western World, including Canada," says Huang. "This is the future of tumour staging. We need to consider the patient as a whole. Both individual factors, how extensive the disease is in the patient, and tumour biology should play a role in determining the best course of treatment." The purpose of a tumour staging system is to classify the disease into early, intermediate or advanced stage cancer. This classification helps determine treatment plans and can suggest what is likely to be the outcome. In recent years, it's been discovered that [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-11T11:01:45-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Integrative and Comparative Genomic Analysis of HPV-Positive and HPV-Negative Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Source: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/Authors: Tanguy Y. Seiwert, Zhixiang Zuo, Michaela K. Keck, Arun Khattri, Chandra S. Pedamallu, Thomas Stricker, Christopher Brown, Trevor J. Pugh, Petar Stojanov, Juok Cho, Michael S. Lawrence, Gad Getz, Johannes Brägelmann, Rebecca DeBoer, Ralph R. Weichselbau, Alexander Langerman, Louis Portugal, Elizabeth Blair, Kerstin Stenson, Mark W. Lingen, Ezra E.W. Cohen, Everett E. Vokes, Kevin P. White, and Peter S. Hammerman Abstract Purpose: The genetic differences between human papilloma virus (HPV)–positive and –negative head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) remain largely unknown. To identify differential biology and novel therapeutic targets for both entities, we determined mutations and copy-number aberrations in a large cohort of locoregionally advanced HNSCC. Experimental Design: We performed massively parallel sequencing of 617 cancer-associated genes in 120 matched tumor/normal samples (42.5% HPV-positive). Mutations and copy-number aberrations were determined and results validated with a secondary method. Results: The overall mutational burden in HPV-negative and HPV-positive HNSCC was similar with an average of 15.2 versus 14.4 somatic exonic mutations in the targeted cancer-associated genes. HPV-negative tumors showed a mutational spectrum concordant with published lung squamous cell carcinoma analyses with enrichment for mutations in TP53, CDKN2A, MLL2, CUL3, NSD1, PIK3CA, and NOTCH genes. HPV-positive tumors showed unique mutations in DDX3X, FGFR2/3 and aberrations in PIK3CA, KRAS, MLL2/3, and NOTCH1 were enriched in HPV-positive tumors. Currently targetable genomic alterations were identified in FGFR1, DDR2, EGFR, FGFR2/3, EPHA2, and PIK3CA. EGFR, CCND1, and FGFR1 amplifications occurred in HPV-negative tumors, whereas 17.6% of HPV-positive tumors harbored mutations in fibroblast growth factor receptor [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-05T14:34:06-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Researchers discover genetic fingerprint of HPV virus in some head and neck cancers

Author: StaffSource: cancerreasearchuk.orgA large US study(link is external) has pinpointed genetic errors that mark out head and neck cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). If confirmed in further studies this could be used to develop potential new treatments. Head and neck cancers include tumours of the throat, mouth, nasal cavity, larynx, salivary gland among other tissues and organs. Some are linked to tobacco or alcohol use, while others are caused by infection with HPV, more commonly associated with cervical cancers. Rates of HPV-linked head and neck cancers are on the increase. The US study, published in the journal Nature, was carried out as part of The Cancer Genome Atla (TCGA) project. Using cutting-edge DNA analysis, the team found several similarities between the DNA from head and neck tumour cells and other cancer types - as well as new subtypes of smoking-related head and neck cancer. The US team studied samples from 279 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) from untreated patients, around eight in 10 of whom were smokers. Most of the samples were oral cavity cancers and larynx cancers (61 per cent and 26 per cent respectively). The researchers found that specific alterations in genes called FGFR3 and PIK3CA – which produce important protein molecules that help cells grow – were common in many patients with HPV-related cancers. These genes are also present in a wider set of faults found in smoking-related tumours. But faults in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene, which produces another important growth molecule, were rare among HPV-positive cancers, despite being frequently [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-01-30T10:22:47-07:00January, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

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