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.

Saliva tests may help with disease diagnosis

Source: www.readingeagle.com Author: John Reitz, DDS The Dentist's Chair Jim: With the newly discovered connection between oral health and overall health, is there anything a dentist can tell about my overall health from looking in my mouth? Dr. Reitz: Dear Jim, a dentist can tell if you have gum disease and tooth decay by looking in your mouth, but to determine your overall health he may need a sample of your saliva. Instead of having just a blood test by your physician, your dentist will soon have the ability to diagnosis systemic disease by doing a saliva test. In dental school I was taught that saliva's function was to neutralize acids and help swallow food. We are now finding that saliva is more complex than originally thought, containing over 1,000 different proteins. The question now is why are the proteins there. Recent advances in technology have found saliva contains indicators, either genes or salivary proteins called biomarkers, of systemic disease. Of the 1,000 salivary proteins already identified, only specific proteins are found in patients with systemic disease. Research at the University of California, Los Angeles is expected to get Food and Drug Administration approval within two years for a saliva test that can detect pancreatic cancer. Other studies have found biomarkers for breast cancer, oral cancer, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and autoimmune disorders. In addition to finding systemic diseases, saliva tests will determine a person's chances of getting tooth decay. Some promising studies have identified biomarkers for a predisposition to [...]

2009-11-02T11:20:17-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

CyberKnife to be focus of numerous presentations at the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) annual meeting

Source: www.reuters.com Author: press release Accuray Incorporated, a global leader in the field of radiosurgery, announced today that 28 CyberKnife-focused abstracts have been accepted as part of the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), taking place November 1 - 5 in Chicago, Illinois. This represents a 27 percent increase in CyberKnife abstracts over last year's Annual Meeting. The accepted abstracts, which will be presented as posters or oral presentations, focus on the use of the CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System to treat tumors located throughout the body including the prostate, lung, brain, spine, liver, pancreas, head and neck. "The depth and breadth of research presented at this year's ASTRO meeting is a testament to the growing clinical acceptance of the CyberKnife System and the important role it is playing in the treatment of cancer," said Euan Thomson, Ph.D., president and CEO of Accuray. Highlights of the research that will be showcased include seven presentations focusing on the use of CyberKnife radiosurgery to treat prostate cancer. CyberKnife prostate procedures from July-September 2009 increased 21 percent over the same period the previous year, confirming the increasing demand for this treatment option. To date, CyberKnife radiosurgery has been used to treat more than 4,000 men with prostate cancer. Additionally, Accuray will host a number of presentations in the company's booth reporting on experience with CyberKnife radiosurgery. Presenters include Eric Lartigau, M.D., Ph.D., from Centre Oscar Lambret; Xiaodong Wu, Ph.D., from University of Miami; Donald B. Fuller, M.D., from CyberKnife [...]

2009-10-31T10:06:44-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Biodesix: a new way to inform cancer treatment selection

Source: www.rockyradar.com Author: staff "One data point doesn’t tell you very much in most cases,” comments David Brunel, CEO of Biodesix, a medical diagnostics company based in Broomfield, Colorado. This principle guides Biodesix’s approach to developing diagnostics which aim to indentify a patient’s expected response to a particular therapeutic. Biodesix’s technology evaluates multiple biomarkers – identified with a blood sample and analyzed using mass spectrometry – to predict response rather than trying to make a determination based on a single biomarker. VeriStrat® is the company’s first test, categorizing the expected prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who receive treatment with a class of targeted cancer drugs know as epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors or EGFR-Is. Tarceva (erlotinib) is an EGFR-I commonly used to treat NSCLC patients. VeriStrat classifies patients as either VeriStrat Good or VeriStrat Poor and this information can assist a physician’s decision to pursue treatment with Tarceva or another treatment. To complete a VeriStrat test, a patient’s blood is drawn and sent to the Biodesix lab in Aurora, Colorado. There the sample is run through a mass spectrometer and the data generated from the mass spectrometer is then processed through a proprietary software algorithm to determine a patient’s VeriStrat classification. The algorithm was developed using samples and subsequent disease response data from patients who had received treatment with an EGFR-I. According to Brunel, “several markers were identified in the group of patients whose cancer is prone to respond to EGFR-I treatment versus those whose cancer [...]

2009-10-30T05:37:08-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Curry kills gullet cancer cells

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk Author: Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent Scientists based at the Cork Cancer Research Centre in Ireland treated oesophageal cancer cells with curcumin – a chemical found in the curry spice tumeric. They found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours. The cells also began to digest themselves, according to the research, published in the British Journal of Cancer. “Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value. "Dr Geraldine O’Sullivan-Coyne, a medical researcher in our lab, had been looking for new ways of killing resistant oesophageal cancer cells. "She tested curcurmin on resistant cells and found that they started to die using an unexpected system of cell messages." Normally, faulty cells die by committing programmed suicide – or apoptosis – which occurs when proteins called caspases are "switched on" in cells. But these cells showed no evidence of suicide and the addition of a molecule that inhibits caspases and stops this ‘switch being flicked’, made no difference to the number of cells which died. This suggested that curcumin attacked the cancer cells using an alternative cell signalling system. Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. Less than 20 per cent of people survive oesophageal cancer beyond five years. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five per cent of all UK cancer [...]

2009-10-29T07:00:03-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Head and neck cancer therapy area pipeline report

Source: www.prminds.com Author: staff Aarkstore announce a new report "Head and Neck Cancer Therapy Area Pipeline Report" through its vast collection of market research report. Head and Neck Cancer Therapy Area Pipeline Report contains detailed information on the head and neck cancer drug pipeline. This report provides insight into the pipeline status of head and neck cancer drugs by company and by stage as well as a summary of the latest news and developments in this area. Scope of the report: Each Life Science Analytics’ Therapy Area Pipeline Report provides the user with real detail on drug pipelines, by company and by stage, for each specific therapy area. The latest news, by company, also ensures that each report is fresh and up-to-date. In addition to new developments and disease specific pipeline projects, each report also contains extensive information in tabular format on a company’s full product pipeline and products by phase of development with regard to the therapy area. Full pipeline details, by stage, are provided and include detailed product descriptions, information on partnering activity plus clinical trial intelligence. Each Therapy Area Pipeline Report also provides detail on the top 20 companies with products in the early stage of development and the top 20 companies with products in the late stage of development. Finally, each report also provides a comparison with other major indications in the disease hub based on Marketed Products vs. Pipeline Products. Key benefits • Understand a company’s strategic position by accessing detailed independent intelligence on its [...]

2009-10-28T08:38:58-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Does the negative node count affect disease-free survival in early-stage oral cavity cancer?

Source: J Oral Maxillofac Surg, November 1, 2009; 67(11): 2473-5 Authors: FL Ampil, G Caldito, GE Ghali, and RG Baluna Purpose: We performed a retrospective study to determine whether there is a relationship between disease-free survival and negative lymph node count in patients with resected early-stage oral cavity cancers. Materials and Methods: Of the 526 individuals diagnosed with carcinoma of the oral cavity between 1998 and 2005, 52 had undergone primary tumor resection and lymph node dissection of the neck for stage I or II disease. With a mean count of 27 examined negative nodes, these 52 patients were separated into groups with fewer than 27 or > or = 27 uninvolved lymph nodes and compared for disease-free survival. Results: The tumor recurred or progressed in 10 patients (19%) during a median follow-up of 27 months. The 2-year disease-free survival rates were 75% and 78% in individuals with fewer than 27 and > or = 27 uninvolved node counts, respectively (P > .78). Conclusion: The removal of a greater number of regional, uninvolved cervical lymph nodes does not correlate with disease-free survival in this particular cohort of patients. Authors' affiliation: Division of Therapeutic Radiology, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA 71130, USA

2009-10-27T05:15:46-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Oncolytics Biotech Inc. announces issuance of 33rd U.S. patent

Source: www.benzinga.com/press-releases Author: press release Oncolytics Biotech Inc. ("Oncolytics") today announced that it has been granted its 33rd U.S. Patent, # 7,608,257, entitled "Sensitization of Chemotherapeutic Agent Resistant Neoplastic Cells With a Virus." The patent claims cover methods of using reovirus in combination with currently approved chemotherapeutic agents to treat patients that are refractory to those chemotherapeutic agents alone. "This patent supports our expanding clinical program, including our first Phase III study, looking at Reolysin(R) in combination with a range of chemotherapeutic agents," said Mary Ann Dillahunty, Vice President of Intellectual Property for Oncolytics. "Many of our studies enroll patients that did not previously respond to chemotherapy, including our Phase III study in patients with platinum refractory head and neck cancers." About Oncolytics Biotech Inc. Oncolytics is a Calgary-based biotechnology company focused on the development of oncolytic viruses as potential cancer therapeutics. Oncolytics' clinical program includes a variety of human trials including a Phase III trial in head and neck cancers using Reolysin(R), its proprietary formulation of the human reovirus.

2009-10-27T05:00:12-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Cancers can vanish without treatment, but how?

Source: nytimes.com Author: Gina Kolata Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened. But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear. “The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. “A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.” So, Dr. Kramer said, the image was “an arrow that moved in one direction.” But now, he added, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, “the whole organism, the person,” whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor. Cancer, Dr. Kramer said, is a dynamic process. It was a view that was hard for some cancer doctors and researchers to accept. But some of [...]

2009-10-27T04:15:26-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Swedish snuff more addicting?

Source: www.upi.com Author: staff A Swedish tobacco company adds a substance to snuff products to heighten dependency, an investigative report concluded. The usual level for snuff or 'snus' is eight milligrams per gram but double that amount was found in one product produced by Swedish Match, the news program Kalla Fakta reported. The report alleges that Swedish Match added a substance known as E500 which raises "free" nicotine to increase craving. The tobacco company denies any wrongdoing. "There is no secret substance in snus," spokesman Henrik Brehmer said regarding the use of E500. "We use it to stabilize the pH value in snus and have done so for 200 years." Brehmer rejected an assertion by Harvard School of Public Health Professor Greg Connolly Swedish Match is deliberately using the substance to addict consumers. "In a study in 2008 he concluded that we are manipulating the pH value, something that we consider hugely speculative," Brehmer said.

2009-10-26T18:47:47-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Completion of Cel-Sci’s new facility signals that long awaited phase III trial is imminent

Source: www.reuters.com Author: press release BioMedReports, the news portal which covers Wall Street's biomedical sector and delivers financial and investment intelligence to a community of highly informed investors, was given an exclusive tour of CEL-SCI Corporation's new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility near Baltimore, MD where the potentially ground breaking cancer immunotherapy treatment, Multikine, will be manufactured to support an upcoming Phase III clinical trial. Multikine is the company's flagship immunotherapeutic head and neck cancer treatment and is the first immunotherapeutic agent being developed as a first-line standard of care cancer treatment. Because it required a very specific cold-fill process for manufacturing, the Phase III trials have been on hold as Cel Sci dedicated the majority of their time and resources to build the new best-in-class production facility. Additionally, once the facility is validated, Cel Sci will become the only entity offering the 4°C cold fill on a contract basis, meaning the potential to bring in significant revenue as an added bonus does exist.

2009-10-26T14:46:03-07:00October, 2009|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