Oral Cancer Foundation News Team – A – Page 224

Type of alcoholic beverage and risk of head and neck cancer—a pooled analysis within the INHANCE consortium

Source: American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwn306 Authors: Mark P. Purdue et al. The authors pooled data from 15 case-control studies of head and neck cancer (9,107 cases, 14,219 controls) to investigate the independent associations with consumption of beer, wine, and liquor. In particular, they calculated associations with different measures of beverage consumption separately for subjects who drank beer only (858 cases, 986 controls), for liquor-only drinkers (499 cases, 527 controls), and for wine-only drinkers (1,021 cases, 2,460 controls), with alcohol never drinkers (1,124 cases, 3,487 controls) used as a common reference group. The authors observed similar associations with ethanol-standardized consumption frequency for beer-only drinkers (odds ratios (ORs) = 1.6, 1.9, 2.2, and 5.4 for ≤5, 6–15, 16–30, and >30 drinks per week, respectively; Ptrend

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-12-09T07:41:39-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

‘Mama!’ First word of boy with tongue built out of his tummy muscles

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk/health Author: Angela Epstein A child's first words are memorable for any parent. But when Daniel Sewell said 'mama' for the first time, his parents had more reason than most to rejoice. Just 12 weeks earlier, their then 19-month-old son had undergone pioneering surgery to rebuild his tongue after first having an operation to remove a cancerous tumour. The family had been warned he might never be able to speak. So Daniel's first word was a monumental achievement. 'I just couldn't believe it,' says his mother Alison. 'That single word meant there was hope that the horrors of the previous months might finally be behind us.' Daniel Sewell and mum Alison Nearly 5,000 people are diagnosed with mouth cancer annually. While other cancers have seen a drop in mortality rates, those for mouth cancer have remained at more than 1,500 deaths a year for a decade. It is often triggered by smoking and drinking - alcohol and nicotine damage the mouth lining, causing cell changes - and is almost unheard of in children. So when Daniel, the youngest of the couple's five children, began having trouble sucking on a bottle, cancer was the furthest thing from his parents' mind. 'With the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that something was bothering him,' remembers Alison, 43, a housewife, who lives with her husband Richard, 42 a shop fitter in Crook, County Durham. 'But at the time we just put it down to teething. I'll always feel terribly guilty about that.' [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-12-09T07:15:12-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Impact of PET scanning consistent across all cancer types

Source: www.medscape.com Authors: Zosia Chustecka, Désirée Lie, MD Scanning with positron emission tomography (PET) scanning has an impact on the intended management of patients with cancer in approximately one third of cases, and new data suggest that this impact is consistent across all cancer types. The results come from the National Oncologic PET Registry (NOPR), and the latest data are reported in the December issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. "Although the effectiveness of PET may differ somewhat between individual cancers, it's in the same ballpark," says coauthor Barry Siegel, MD, professor of radiology at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis, Missouri. "This result was a little unexpected, but it leads us to believe that a continual parsing of PET's usefulness, cancer by cancer and indication by indication, for purposes of reimbursement does not make clinical sense." At present in the United States, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) restricts the reimbursement of PET scans for only 9 cancer types. The cancers that are covered include non–small-cell lung cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer, head and neck cancer, lymphoma and melanoma (all for diagnosis, staging, and restaging), breast cancer (for restaging and treatment monitoring), thyroid cancer (for restaging under very specific circumstances), and cervical cancer (for initial staging if conventional imaging result is negative for extrapelvic metastasis). NOPR was launched in 2006 in response to a proposal from the CMS to expand coverage for PET to other cancers. In this registry, patients are covered under the CMS [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-12-04T12:49:17-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Saliva-test pioneer David Wong named to endowed chair in dentistry

Source: www.newsroom.ucla.edu Author: Sandra Shagat The UCLA School of Dentistry has named oral biology professor David Wong, a pioneer in the use of saliva for diagnosing cancer and other diseases, as the first holder of the Felix and Mildred Yip Endowed Professorship in Dentistry. The new chair, created by a $1 million gift from Dr. Felix Yip and his wife, Mildred, will support research on oral and head and neck cancers, an area of particular emphasis at the School of Dentistry. Wong has made major advances in the fight against oral cancer, having developed with colleagues the first standardized saliva-based test for the disease. His ongoing research in saliva diagnostics has helped build UCLA's reputation as a center for excellence in oral fluid research. "Felix and Mildred Yip are visionary donors who saw an opportunity to help advance a promising area of scientific research that ultimately could save lives," said No-Hee Park, dean of the UCLA School of Dentistry. "Their generous gift supports our efforts to make salivary diagnostics a new clinical paradigm for disease detection." The Yips are noted philanthropists within the Asian American community in Southern California and have been generous supporters of UCLA and the School of Dentistry. They are among a small group of Chinese-American philanthropists who have established chairs at UCLA. Felix Yip has served as a member of the School of Dentistry's board of counselors since 2003, and since 2002, the Yips have funded a scholarship program at the school that enables foreign scholars [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-12-02T14:11:07-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Cetuximab approved for first-line treatment of head and neck cancer in Europe

Source: www.docguide.com Author: staff The European Commission has approved a new indication for the use of cetuximab (Erbitux) to include first-line treatment of patients with recurrent and/or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The approval is based primarily upon the results of the Erbitux in First-Line Treatment of Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Cancer (EXTREME) study, published in the September issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The EXTREME study established that adding cetuximab to platinum-based chemotherapy significantly prolonged median overall and progression-free survival, and also significantly increased response rate. Patients treated with cetuximab plus chemotherapy experienced the following improvements, compared with chemotherapy alone: · Median overall survival increase of nearly 3 months (10.1 vs 7.4 months; P = .04), equating to a 20% reduction in the risk of death (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.80) during the study period · 70% increase in median progression-free survival (5.6 vs 3.3 months; P < .001) · 80% relative increase in response rate (36% vs 20%; P < .001) The most commonly reported side effect with cetuximab is an acne-like skin rash that seems to be correlated with a good response to therapy. In approximately 5% of patients, hypersensitivity reactions may occur during treatment with cetuximab; about half of these reactions are severe. Note: 1. Source: Merck

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-12-01T18:50:38-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

10 years after settlement, tobacco rebounds in US

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/ap Author: Bruce Schreiner and Emery P. Dalesio Lindsay Pasley is an eager young man in what used to be an older man's game — tobacco farming. He recently took 20 tons of his early prepared leaf to Clay's Tobacco Warehouse in Mount Sterling, due east of Lexington in the Appalachian foothills, where he said he earned enough to "have a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas." The auctioneer's singsong chant still rings out at Clay's and a few other tobacco-selling sites stubbornly hanging on with limited sales, but not nearly as often. Clay's is the last tobacco warehouse standing in Mount Sterling, once home to four. Owner Roger Wilson, who has watched as longtime growers have switched crops or quit farming altogether over the years, hopes to sell more than 2 million pounds this season, comparable to last year but down about half from the days before Congress pulled the plug on a Depression-era buyout program. Yet Pasley, 28, wants to quadruple his acreage. He has a contract to sell 10 times as much to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. as he did at the auction. A decade ago, tobacco seemed destined to wither as cigarette companies shelled out tens of billions to settle lawsuits with states. Smoking bans then swept the country and — worst of all for the small-time grower — Congress cut off the quota system four years ago. As a rebound in production this year shows, however, Big Tobacco and individual growers alike have proven as resilient [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-30T12:04:20-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer survivor is again living the life of a teenager

Source: heraldnet.com Author: Julie Muhlstein Mark Edmondson doesn't ask "Why me?" The 18-year-old has endured more pain than most people suffer in a long lifetime. "I'm still alive," the Everett High School senior said Monday. "I appreciate a lot of things now most teenagers don't." Two years ago today, when Edmondson was featured in this column, he'd just been diagnosed with an aggressive type of mouth cancer. He'd survived grueling surgery. Still ahead were months of chemotherapy and radiation. At 16, as friends were staring to drive and enjoying high school, his future looked bleak. With every reason for self-pity, he never let himself sink. "Never," said his mother, Stephanie Edmondson. "There's no complaining, no whining, no 'Why me?' He's always been like that. He has kind of an old soul. I'm very proud of him," she said. She is also thankful beyond words. Today, Mark Edmondson is strong and fit. He missed a year of school, but is on track for June graduation. He works out at the YMCA and has two jobs. He looks forward to Thanksgiving with his mother, younger brother John, grandmother Celeste Berdahl and extended family. Just a year ago, Mark had a feeding tube. At 5 feet, 10 inches tall, his mother said, he weighed 104 pounds. He finished radiation treatments at Seattle's Swedish Medical Center in the spring of 2007. Since then, scans and biopsies have shown that he's cancer-free. But last fall he suffered an intestinal infection. "He did not look like [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-30T11:56:52-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

New cases of cancer decline in the United States

Source: nytimes.com Author: Roni Cryn Rabin The incidence of new cancer cases has been falling in recent years in the United States, the first time such an extended decline has been documented, researchers reported Tuesday. Cancer diagnosis rates decreased by an average of 0.8 percent each year from 1999 to 2005, the last year for which data are available, according to an annual report by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and other scientific organizations. Death rates from cancer continued to decline as well, a trend that began some 15 years ago, the report also noted. It was published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Each year that you see these steady declines it gives you more confidence that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Dr. John E. Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, who is not an author of the report. “This is not just a blip on the screen.” Death rates from cancer fell an average of 1.8 percent each year from 2002 to 2005, according to the new report. Although last year’s report said death rates dropped an average of 2.1 percent each year from 2002 to 2004, a modest 1 percent decline in 2005 lowered the average percentage for the period. The decline is primarily due to a reduction in death rates from certain common cancers, including prostate cancer and lung cancer in men, breast cancer in women and colorectal cancer in both sexes. The report attributes the reductions [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-26T10:36:32-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

ASCO updates guideline on chemotherapy and radiation protectants

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Nick Mulcahy In its first issuance since 2002, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has released an updated guideline on the use of protectants for chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The update provides new guidance on the use of palifermin, the only new protectant approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 2002, as well as new or deleted recommendations for amifostine and dexrazoxane. The updated guideline, published online November 17 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also addresses the concern that protectant agents could compromise tumor response and survival. Palifermin, a recombinant keratinocyte growth factor, was approved for prophylaxis against severe mucositis associated with hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation in hematologic malignancies. It represents "an advance for the field," write the guideline authors, cochaired by Martee L Hensley, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City, and Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, from the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. Because of the growing body of evidence on amifostine use in the prevention of esophagitis, the ASCO panel of experts decided to add a new section on this topic in the chemoradiotherapy setting for non–small-cell lung cancer. Updates on amifostine also include guidance on its use for both chemotherapy and radiation-therapy toxicities. With regard to dexrazoxane, the panel made only 1 change from the previous guidelines: guidance on its use in patients receiving high-dose anthracycline therapy has been deleted because of insufficient data. However, the panel highlighted its previous and ongoing recommendation that this agent not be [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-25T22:27:09-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

What to expect: HPV vaccine Gardasil for men

Source: www.vaccinerx.com Author: written by Vaccind Rx Daily Staff The four-type (6,11,16,18) human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil® is also effective in men according to the primary analysis from a pivotal phase III clinical study. In previously uninfected men aged 16 to 26 years*, Gardasil® prevented 90% (95%CI: 69, 98) of external genital lesions caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16 or 18. The data were presented this week at the congress of the European Research Organisation on Genital Infection and Neoplasia (EUROGIN) in Nice, France.1 The study was designed to determine the efficacy of Gardasil® in preventing HPV 6,11,16 or 18- related 'external genital lesions' a composite endpoint that included genital warts, penile / perineal / perianal lesions† (PIN, PIN2/3; potential pre-cursors to cancer) and penile / perineal / perianal cancer. In the study, Gardasil was 90.4% effective in reducing external genital lesions (3 cases in the vaccine group vs 31 cases in the placebo group; 95% CI:69.2, 98.1). All three cases observed in the HPV vaccinated group were of genital warts, resulting in a vaccine efficacy of 89.4% (95% CI [65.5, 97.9]) in preventing genital warts in men. There were no cases of penile / perineal / perianal lesions in the vaccinated group vs. 3 cases in the placebo group. There were no cases of penile / perineal / perianal cancer in either group. At the time of this analysis, the study had a mean duration of about 29 months. No HPV vaccine-related serious adverse events were reported. A [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-25T22:12:42-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

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