About Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A has created 2444 blog entries.

Oral sex can add to risk of HPV positive cancers

Source: www.time.com Author: Coco Masters Oral sex can get most men's attention. The topic becomes considerably more relevant, however, when coupled with a new study linking the human papillomavirus (HPV) to an increased risk of a kind of oral cancer more often seen in men. The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. These findings dwarf the increased risk of developing this so-called oropharyngeal cancer associated with the two major risk factors: smoking (3 times greater) or drinking (2.5 times greater). HPV infection drives cancerous growth, as it is widely understood to do in the cervix. But unlike cervical cancer, this type of oral cancer is more prevalent in men. HPV is ubiquitous. Of the 120 strains isolated from humans — about 40 of which are in the mouth and genital tracts — Merck's recently FDA-approved vaccine, Gardasil, protects against four: HPV-6 and HPV-11, which cause warts; and HPV-16 and HPV-18, which cause about 70% of cervical cancers. Similarly, according to the study, HPV-16 was present in 72 of the 100 cancer patients enrolled in the study. Between 12,000 and [...]

2010-04-19T22:32:29-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Isn’t it about time? Overcoming the real barriers to complete oral cancer screening

Source: www.dentistryiq.com Author: Jonathan A. Bregman, DDS, FAGD In the previous articles of this series, I discussed four barriers I see as stopping those in the dental profession from doing a complete oral cancer screening examination. In Part 1, the barrier I discussed is the overall lack of confidence in doing a complete extra-/intraoral cancer screening exam. The rationale: “not doing the exam at all puts me at less risk than doing it and missing something.” In Part 2, the barrier I discussed is being unclear about who to examine: the changing target population, especially the influence of the human papillomavirus (HPV 16/18). In Part 3, the uncertainties of how the complete cancer screening examination should be done, plus communicating the reasons for doing it for patients. In Part 4: Uncertainty about how to properly record the cancer screening examination Barrier 5: Uncertainty about how to best and most effectively deliver the message of a positive finding The more we look, the more we find. The more we look, the closer we look, the more abnormalities we will detect with our cancer screening exam. This makes sense, of course. The same goes for the complete periodontal examination, the complete occlusal analysis, the complete updated radiographic evaluation, etc. In each area — tissue abnormalities, periodontal abnormalities, occlusal abnormalities — we must address the needs of the patient in a way that sets the stage for understanding of the problem(s) and presenting possible options/solutions to correct the problems. Build on what you [...]

2010-04-19T22:33:02-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

HPV-related cancer not confined to cervix

Source: www.businesswire.com Author: press release The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the causative agent responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, but is also associated with several other types of cancer. Expert physicians from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Member Institutions presented an update on HPV and its link to various cancers including cervical cancer, anal carcinoma, and head and neck cancers discussing prevention strategies and the latest recommended treatment options according to the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™). “It is important to counsel against any tobacco use as well as excessive alcohol consumption, and also to inform patients about the role of HPV and its mechanism of spread” Robert J. Morgan, MD, FACP of City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and a member of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for Cervical Cancer began the session speaking about the link between HPV and cervical cancer as well as methods of prevention. “Cervical cancer screening with the pap smear is one of the greatest success stories in medicine,” said Dr. Morgan pointing to data that shows a steadily decreasing death rate from cervical cancer since the 1980s. The link between HPV and cervical cancer first started to emerge in the 1970’s when researchers found evidence linking cervical cancer to a wart virus coupled with the fact that cervical cancer was associated with sexual activity. In 1983, HPV DNA was identified in cervical cancer tissue. There are 120 known HPV serotypes with 19 being considered high risk, although as Dr. [...]

2010-03-11T19:12:43-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Why men’s health is a feminist issue

Source: www.msmagazine.com Author: Adina Nack Jorge (not his real name) feared his girlfriend would dump him. He’d been diagnosed with genital warts before meeting her, and hadn’t yet told her about his infection. Jorge was being careful—no skin-to-skin sexual contact—but the disclosure was looming. So he’d done some research and learned what caused genital warts. Armed with that knowledge, he hoped that his girlfriend wouldn’t reject him, especially since he knew she could be protected from contracting warts “because of the Gardasil vaccine.” It never occurred to Jorge that Gardasil, made by the pharmaceutical company Merck, could also have protected him. But that’s probably because it was only last October that the Food and Drug Administration approved a “male” Gardasil for preventing genital warts. And the FDA has yet to put its stamp on another promising usage of the vaccine for men: preventing cancer, especially highly prevalent oral cancers. Since Gardasil was FDA-approved in 2006, it has received a huge marketing push for preventing cervical cancer in women. It has come into frequent—if sometimes controversial—use for females 9 to 26 years old because it’s designed to guard them, before they ever have sex, against contracting a virus that has been linked to cervical cancer. That virus is HPV, human papillomavirus, which causes one-third of all sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. Gardasil offers protection against four of the 30 to 40 types of sexually transmissible HPV. While it’s fear of cervical cancer that have motivated young women to get [...]

2010-03-09T21:48:41-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

BT Pharma secures EUR 13.1million (USD 17.7 million) in capital funding and changes its name to Genticel

Source: pharmalive.com/News Author: press release BT Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative immunotherapies to prevent cancers caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), announces today that it has raised EUR 13.1 million in additional funding and changed its name to Genticel. AGF Private Equity led the round, which brought in three new investors, IRDI (Institut Régional de Développement Industriel), Amundi Private Equity Funds and InnoBio fund, managed by CDC Entreprises, within FSI France Investment program. Previous investors, including Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP), also took part. To best leverage its unique and broadly applicable therapeutic vaccine platform, Adenylate Cyclase (CyaA), Genticel will focus its efforts on the prevention of cervical cancer in HPV infected women. A phase I clinical trial of Genticel's lead therapeutic HPV vaccine, ProCervix, is scheduled for the second quarter of 2010. This bivalent product, which carries antigens originating from both HPV16 and HPV18, should offer a curative vaccine solution that will complement current prophylactic vaccines. "This level of support from investors, particularly in the current economic environment, is extremely encouraging and confirms the potential of our drug candidates and our business plan," said Dr Benedikt Timmerman, CEO at Genticel. "The new funding will not only enable us to conduct our 'first-in-man' clinical trial with the CyaA technology but also allow the company to prepare for phase II in the same indication and prepare pipeline products up to the development stage." Dr Alain Munoz, MD, representative of AGF Private Equity, who has joined the Supervisory Board of [...]

2010-03-09T21:40:51-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Mayo oral cancer study shows full tumor genome

Source: insciences.org Author: press release Mayo Clinic researchers along with collaborators from Life Technologies are reporting on the application of a new approach for sequencing RNA to study cancer tumors. Their findings from a proof-of-principle study on oral carcinomas appear in the current issue of PLoS One, the online science journal. To explore the advantages of massively parallel sequencing of genomic transcripts (RNA), the researchers used a novel, strand-specific sequencing method using matched tumors and normal tissues of three patients with the specific cancer. They also analyzed the genomic DNA from one of the tumor-normal pairs which revealed numerous chromosomal regions of gain and loss in the tumor sample. The key finding of this work was that alterations in gene expression which can arise from a variety of genomic alterations frequently are driven by losses or gains in large chromosomal regions during tumor development. In addition to the specific tumor findings, this study also demonstrated the value of this RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) method. It will allow researchers to measure strand-specific expression across the entire sample's transcriptome. This technology reveals far more detail about genome-wide transcription than traditional microarrays. "This method allows us to investigate genetic changes at a level that we were never able to see before," says David Smith, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic genomics researcher and corresponding author of the study. "This provides us with much more information about alterations during cancer development that could reveal important therapeutic targets. We can more completely understand the relationship between an individual's genome [...]

2010-03-06T14:16:56-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Viagra, Cialis do more than arouse

Source: www.kptv.com Author: staff More than 30 million men take them for erectile dysfunction, but the drugs marketed to treat male impotence are now being investigated for the treatment of more than a dozen diseases and health problems. Researchers say ED drugs like Viagra could turn out to be as versatile as aspirin. They're the images of happy couples that helped make erectile dysfunction drugs a $3 billion business. But now doctors say those little pills may also save lives. Brian Kumnick is fighting throat cancer. He's been through months of radiation and surgery. “The radiation, it's barbaric,” Kumnick told Ivnahoe. “It's really barbaric, and I've lost my taste buds, for example. I can't taste anything. Water tastes like acid going down." He's part of a clinical trial to see if the ED drug Cialis can cure head and neck cancers. "It'd be really nice to just take a pill that has a pleasant side effect,” Kumnick said. In preliminary studies, doctors at Johns Hopkins say Cialis energized patients' immune systems so their bodies could battle the cancer cells. Next, they'll test to see if the drug also shrinks tumors. "When we looked at the blood of head and neck cancer patients, we could get their immune response to rev up to near normal levels, whereas they were suppressed maybe 75 percent, sometimes even 80 percent,” Joseph Califano, M.D., professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., told Ivanhoe. From fighting cancer, [...]

2010-03-06T07:32:55-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Avoid incense

Source: featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com Author: Julie Deardorff You know you're in a yoga or massage studio when the smell of Nag Champa incense--a blend of patchouli and sandalwood--permeates the air. But you may not want to breathe too deep. Incense contains potent pollutants, notably benzene, toluene and formaldehyde--known carcinogens found in tobacco smoke, according to the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter. "A study in the journal Cancer linked long-term incense use with a significant increase in cancers of the upper respiratory tract (nose, tongue, mouth and larynx, for instance,) but not lung cancer. Incense also pollutes the air with fine particles that can be inhaled and can contribute to cardiorespiratory disease."

2010-03-05T07:48:59-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Transoral robotic surgery showed good oncologic, functional outcomes

Source: Author: Christen Haigh Patients with head and neck cancers treated with transoral robotic surgery — or TORS — had good disease control, disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), according to the findings of a preliminary study presented at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz. “Disease control and survival rates using TORS appeared to be equivalent or near equivalent to those rates reported with chemoradiation, but with TORS, we need better functional outcome,” Eric Genden, MD, chief of the division of head and neck oncology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, said during the presentation of the results. To determine the role of TORS in the treatment of oropharyngeal cancer, researchers prospectively evaluated patterns of failure, survival and functional outcomes of 25 patients treated with TORS and compared them with that of 12 patients treated with combined chemoradiation. The one-year locoregional control was 95%; distant control was 96%; DFS was 86% and OS was 86%. There was one local failure, one distant failure, one second primary failure and one comorbid death. Patients who received TORS had less acute toxicity two weeks after treatment vs. patients who received chemoradiotherapy. The TORS group had better eating ability than the chemoradiotherapy group (74% vs. 52%) and had improved diet vs. the chemoradiotherapy group (43% vs. 20%). Thus, TORS was associated with a higher overall functional oral intake scale score vs. that of the chemoradiotherapy group (5.3 vs. 3.2). Both groups had a score of 100% for [...]

2010-03-05T07:43:24-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Prolonged treatment delay did not affect outcomes in SCCHN

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: Christen Haigh No association was found between diagnosis to treatment interval and tumor control outcomes in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). However, patients with poor Karnofsky performance status, black patients and patients treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy all had prolonged diagnosis to treatment interval. Jimmy J. Caudell Jr., MD, PhD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Mississippi, Jackson, presented the findings at the Multidisciplinary Head & Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz. Prolonged treatment delay from the time of diagnosis may often occur in patients with locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer due to social, dental, nutritional and radiotherapy planning procedures that need to be resolved prior to treatment initiation, according to researchers. To assess factors affecting treatment delay, researchers analyzed data from 426 patients with SCCHN treated with radiotherapy from 1995 to 2007 at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The median follow-up was 42 months. The median diagnosis to treatment interval was 34 days. Longer than median diagnosis to treatment interval was associated with treatment off protocol (P=.002), black ethnicity (P=.005), insurance type (P

2010-03-05T07:32:43-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
Read More
© - The Oral Cancer Foundation - Head & Neck Cancer IRS 501(c)3 Charity - 3419 Via Lido #205, Newport Beach, CA 92663 | Disclaimer / Privacy Policy
Go to Top