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Radiation was the cure, and the killer

Source: nytimes.com Author: Walt Bogdanich As Scott Jerome-Parks lay dying, he clung to this wish: that his fatal radiation overdose -- which left him deaf, struggling to see, unable to swallow, burned, with his teeth falling out, with ulcers in his mouth and throat, nauseated, in severe pain and finally unable to breathe -- be studied and talked about publicly so that others might not have to live his nightmare. Sensing death was near, Jerome-Parks summoned his family for a final Christmas. His friends sent two buckets of sand from the beach where they had played as children so he could touch it, feel it and remember better days. Jerome-Parks died several weeks later in 2007. He was 43. A New York City hospital treating him for tongue cancer had failed to detect a computer error that directed a linear accelerator to blast his brain stem and neck with errant beams of radiation. Not once, but on three consecutive days. Jerome-Parks experienced the wonders and the brutality of radiation. It helped diagnose and treat his disease. It also inflicted unspeakable pain. Yet while Jerome-Parks had hoped that others might learn from his misfortune, the details of his case have until now been shielded from public view by the government, doctors and the hospital. Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Without a doubt, radiation [...]

2010-01-24T22:10:20-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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E-Cigarette company faces legal fights on multiple fronts

Source: www.legalnewsline.com Author: Chris Rizo Officials in California are making a strong push against one of the largest electronic cigarette retailers in the United States. It seems that the manufacturer -- Smoking Everywhere LLC -- is facing attack on at least two fronts in the Golden State: from the attorney general and a leading state lawmaker. State Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, is suing Smoking Everywhere, alleging that the Sunrise, Fla.-based company is targeting minors in its marketing and making "misleading and irresponsible" claims that its tar-free alternatives to traditional cigarettes are safe. "Smoking Everywhere launched a misleading and irresponsible advertising campaign targeting minors and claiming that electronic cigarettes do not contain harmful chemicals," Brown said. "We are asking the Court to take these cigarettes off the market until the company has proven the products are safe." For its part, Smoking Everywhere claims that their products, which come in a range of flavors including mint, strawberry and chocolate, are designed to replicate smoking without some of the harmful side-effects of a traditional cigarette. The electronic cigarette functions by vaporizing a liquid nicotine mixture that is derived naturally from tobacco plants. The user inhales vapor without the fire, flame, tar, carbon monoxide, ash or smell of traditional cigarettes. In his lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court, Brown is seeking to bar Smoking Everywhere from doing business in California until the company can prove that its products are safe and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A similar [...]

2010-01-23T22:59:56-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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Idera obtains clinical milestone under collaboration with Merck

Source: www.tradingmarkets.com Author: staff Idera Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company, has achieved a milestone under its worldwide licensing and collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The milestone was achieved upon initiation of a Phase II trial by Merck KGaA of EMD 1201081, a novel agonist of toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9), in combination with cetuximab in second-line cetuximab-naive patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Under the terms of the agreement, the company is entitled to receive a payment of E3 million from Merck KGaA during the first quarter of 2010. The clinical trial is being conducted in eight countries, including the US. Idera Pharmaceuticals entered into a worldwide licensing and collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in December 2007 for the research, development and commercialization of Idera's TLR9 agonists, including IMO-2055, for the potential treatment of certain cancers. In addition to the clinical study announced today, under the company's collaboration with Merck KGaA, EMD 1201081 is currently being evaluated in a Phase Ib clinical trial in combination with Tarceva and Avastin in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and in a Phase Ib clinical trial in combination with Erbitux and an irinotecan-containing treatment regimen in patients with colorectal cancer. Alice Bexon, vice president of clinical development at Idera, said: "We are very pleased with Merck KGaA's initiation of this randomized Phase II clinical trial of EMD 1201081 in combination with cetuximab in patients with head and neck cancer. "Under our collaboration with [...]

2010-01-22T09:59:21-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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Helping cancer patients with their self image

Source: www.wkowtv.com Author: staff Thirty-four-year-old Angela Gass has difficulty swallowing and speaking. She lost part of her tongue and jawbone to a 12-year battle with cancer. "They reconstructed all of it using other parts of my body," says Angela. The fight to survive the cancer and the numerous surgeries eventually took more than just a physical toll. "I was depressed. I was embarrassed and I didn't want to leave my house," says Angie. She enrolled in the pilot phase of a body image therapy program underway at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston. "Patients don't feel at times comfortable talking with their doctor or healthcare providers about these issues," says Michelle Fingeret, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist Issues like feeling guilty about appearance-related concerns and dealing with social situations. "A lot of times a patient will just start crying to me right away and saying you know no one's ever talked to me about this before and I don't feel, I feel so vain or I feel ashamed or guilty about bringing this up when I should just be happy I'm getting my cancer treated and I'm surviving cancer right now." "It kind of took weight off of me knowing it was okay to feel that way." A counselor initially meets with patients in person but also counsels them by phone for convenience. She discusses their concerns, helps them set goals and celebrates milestones with them. "I think my first assignment was to go to the grocery store and not cover my [...]

2010-01-22T09:54:04-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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Successful completion of second dose group in a Phase I/II Amphinex trial – strong anti-tumour response observed in all patients

Source: frontierindia.net Author: staff of Frontier India Pharmacetuicals News PCI Biotech reported today that it has completed the treatment of the second dose group in the phase I/II study of its proprietary photosensitiser Amphinex® used in combination with the cytotoxic agent bleomycin in cancer patients. To date seven patients have been given a single photochemical internalisation (PCI) treatment of Amphinex® with all the treated tumours in all patients disappearing within a few weeks of treatment. Furthermore, no drug-related serious adverse events have been recorded. “We are very excited by the positive results that have been reported from University College Hospital (UCH) in London. The strong antitumour response seen in all patients treated with Amphinex® is far better than expected at the first dose levels and indicates that the positive pre-clinical results obtained with our PCI technology are transferrable to treatment in humans”, says PCI Biotech CEO Per Walday. When activated by light, Amphinex® promotes effective local delivery of a variety of therapeutic molecules, e.g. bleomycin, through triggered endosomal release. The primary objective of the UCH study is to assess the maximum tolerated dose of Amphinex®, in PCI treatment with bleomycin. Secondary objectives include determination of the antitumor activity of the treatment, as well as the pharmacokinetics of Amphinex®. The study has also been designed to include patients with as wide as possible a range of cancers and has already included sarcoma, breast, and head and neck cancer patients. The effectiveness of the PCI treatment seems to be similar across all [...]

2010-01-19T08:19:56-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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IBG wine tasting: affordable and fabulous

Source: www.prlog.org Author: press release For many of us, extravagant prices for wine with dinner on an average Wednesday night have gone the way of large holiday bonuses. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still treat yourself to fabulous wine. Please join IBG Inc. for a wine tasting and silent auction on January 23, 2010 at the Wilshire Art Gallery in Beverly Hills where you can sample wines from around the world. These wines are unique, interesting and affordable. In addition to exploring these wines, attendees are eligible to bid on items donated by our generous sponsors, including items from Dior Beauty, modcloth.com, Louden Swain, “The Bonnie Hunt Show”, “The Soup” with Joel McHale, The Cheesecake Factory, Sprinkles and others. The best part? The $25 entrance fee and all proceeds from the silent auction will go to support IBG Inc’s charitable efforts throughout the year. Our planned support programs for the first half of 2010 include support for organizations on the front lines dealing with catastrophic illness, education, arts and culture and social services. Events, auctions and awareness campaigns are planned for the PKD Foundation (Polycystic Kidney Disease), Art Aids Art, the Oral Cancer Foundation, Children of the Night, Fezeka Scholoarship Fund, Kids Defense Team, Off The Street Kids and the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Founded in late 2008, IBG (http://www.ibginc.org) established a non-profit focusing on utilizing the power of philanthropy through the arts to benefit a broad range of charities worldwide. We act as [...]

2010-01-17T15:31:44-07:00January, 2010|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|
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Radiation exposure may increase risk of stroke and heart disease

Source: www.onmedica.com Author: OnMedica Staff Exposure to moderate levels of radiation may increase the rates of heart disease and stroke, according to new research. Several studies have shown that high doses of radiation to the heart or head and neck from radiotherapy cause an excess of deaths from heart disease or stroke in later years. But it is uncertain whether radiation exposures at relatively low dose levels (under 1 Gy) also increase the risk. To investigate this further, Dr Yukiko Shimizu and colleagues from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan examined the risk of heart disease and stroke in 86,611 atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have been followed up for 53 years, from 1950 to 2003, as part of the Japanese atomic bomb survivor Life Span Study. Each member of the group had received an estimated radiation dose from 0-4 Gy (86% received less than 0.2 Gy) at the time of the bomb. Other risk factors for circulatory disease that could have affected the results, such as smoking, alcohol intake, education, occupation, obesity and diabetes were also taken into account. The researchers found an elevated risk of both stroke and heart disease at doses above 0.5 Gy, but the degree of risk at lower doses was unclear. Together, this represents about 210 excess deaths from circulatory disease associated with radiation exposure – about a third as many as the total excess number of cancer deaths (about 625) among atomic bomb survivors in the Life Span Study. [...]

2010-01-15T19:58:54-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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Saskatchewan students choose anti-tobacco ad for national non-smoking week

Source: www.canadaviews.ca Author: Government of Saskatchewan Saskatchewan’s Health Minister is pleased to announce the winning anti-tobacco advertisement selected by Saskatchewan students participating in the View and Vote program. Students in Grades 6 to 12 were given the opportunity to view and vote on some of the best international, American and Canadian anti-tobacco television ads. Two hundred and fifty seven schools in Saskatchewan participated in this year’s View and Vote program, which generated 14,000 student ballots. Nearly 3,200 students rated the Australian ad “Mouth Cancer” as most effective. This ad will be aired on Saskatchewan television stations starting January 17 during the National Non-Smoking Week. “Encouraging our youth to be tobacco-free is an important step toward healthy, productive lives,” Health Minister Don McMorris said. “This project is an innovative way of reaching large numbers of young people and educating them about the addictive nature of tobacco and the effects of smoking. Studies show that if young people remain tobacco-free until they become adults, they are less likely to start using tobacco in the future.” Students played an active role in the project. The ads were used as a tool to generate classroom discussions about the effects of tobacco use. Students then voted on the ad that they felt would keep them from starting to use tobacco or, if they already use tobacco, the ad that made them think about quitting. View and Vote is one component of the provincial tobacco reduction strategy focusing on youth, which has three main goals: prevention [...]

2010-01-15T19:52:47-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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Finnish firm to market cancer-prevention capsule

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ Author: staff Finnish medical biotechnology group Biohit said Monday it had developed a capsule that could help prevent stomach and throat cancer by neutralising the cancer-causing compound acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is produced from alcohol and sugar by microbes in the mouth. The gastric acid of a healthy stomach generally kills these microbes, but they can survive in an acid-free stomach and continue to produce acetaldehyde there. "It is clear that acetaldehyde is a class one carcinogenic, or a cancer-causing factor of the worst kind, and it is clear that an acid-free stomach is a risk factor for stomach cancer," Biohit chief executive Osmo Suovaniemi told AFP. He said the capsule, developed by Biohit in collaboration with researchers from the University of Helsinki, neutralised acetaldehyde when taken with meals or alcohol and could, therefore, help prevent the development of cancer. "How many cancer cases it may prevent in the future remains to be seen," Suovaniemi said, adding it would take years to determine the capsule's cancer-preventing impact. Suovaniemi said the drug had received the approval of medical authorities after undergoing clinical testing. Biohit aims to make the over-the-counter capsules available in Finnish pharmacies during the first half of this year and to start marketing them internationally during 2011 at the latest.

2010-01-13T14:48:49-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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India ranks first in number of oral cancer cases: World Health Organization report

Source: www.newkerala.com Author: staff India has the highest number of oral cancer cases in the world out of which 90 per cent have been reported due to tobacco-related diseases, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) survey report. The report said more than 2,200 Indians die each day from a tobacco-related cases and in 2010, an estimated ten lakh people will die due to the killer disease. Every day, 55,000 Indian youths start tobacco use, the report further said. In view of the growing tobacco menace, a one-day Media Advocacy Workshop on Tobacco Control was jointly organised by Itanagar Press Club (IPC) and Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) here recently. In the meeting both the print and electronic media unanimously observed that strict enforcement of section 4 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, should be ensured. Highlighting different aspects of tobacco in terms of health hazards and socio-economic impact, epidemiologist Dr L Jampa informed that India is the second largest consumer and is placed third in respect of tobacco production. He informed that in 17 out of 29 states of India, tobacco use is more than 69 per cent. The Northeastern region exhibits highest rates of tobacco use - in Mizoram more than 80 per cent of men use some form of tobacco, followed by Tripura (76 per cent) and Assam (72). Arunachal Pradesh is the second largest state whos people chew tobacco [...]

2010-01-12T12:21:00-07:00January, 2010|Oral Cancer News|
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