Oral Cancer Foundation News Team – A – Page 233

American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology selects recipient of first nursing award

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: staff The American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology has selected Peggy Wiederholt, R.N., as the inaugural winner of the ASTRO Nurse Excellence Award, which is awarded to a registered nurse who goes above and beyond the normal standards of nursing practice. Ms. Wiederholt was presented with her award, a $1,000 grant, at the nurses' welcome and orientation luncheon held Sunday, September 21, 2008, at 12:00 p.m. during ASTRO's 50th Annual Meeting in Boston. Ms. Wiederholt is the head and neck oncology nurse coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center in Madison, Wis., where she is responsible for bridging communication between patients and providers, assisting patient needs, coordinating care, managing chemoradiation-induced symptoms and side effects, and providing patient, family and staff education. She has worked in the University of Wisconsin System for over 25 years, the last five of which were in the Radiation Oncology Department. During her time as a radiation oncology nurse, Ms. Wiederholt co-founded "Heads Up," a head and neck cancer patient support group at the Carbone Cancer Center and now serves as the group's co-director. In January 2007 she served as a member of the steering committee for the first multidisciplinary head and neck cancer symposium sponsored by ASTRO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Head and Neck Society. Ms. Wiederholt has also co-authored a cancer patient handbook titled, "The Write Track, a Personal Health Tracker for Cancer Patients." For the past two years, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-02T12:59:11-07:00October, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Spit proteins could lead to oral cancer test

Source: www.canada.com Author: Maggie Fox A simple screen of proteins in human saliva was able to accurately detect a common type of oral cancer, a finding that may lead to a painless new diagnostic test, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. The test can predict the mouth cancer in 93 percent of cases, a team at the University of California Los Angeles reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. It is among the first of a new set of spit-based diagnostic tests expected to arise from a protein map of human saliva developed by researchers at UCLA and other centers. The map, published in March, identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands. The latest findings focus on oral squamous cell carcinoma, which affects more than 300,000 people worldwide. More than 90 percent of cancers that start in the mouth are squamous cell cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. Researchers at UCLA's School of Dentistry collected saliva samples from 64 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma and compared them with samples from 64 healthy patients. They found that five protein biomarkers -- M2BP, MRP14, CD59, profilin and catalase -- predicted oral cancer 93 percent of the time. "We have demonstrated a new approach for cancer biomarker discovery using saliva proteomics," said Shen Hu, who led the research. The UCLA team is developing devices to detect these markers that could be studied in human trials. "I believe a test measuring these biomarkers will come to a point of regular [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-02T07:04:32-07:00October, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Vitamin C may interfere with cancer treatment

Source: New York Times (nytimes.com) Author: Tara Parker-Pope Many people gobble big doses of vitamin C in hopes of boosting their immune system and warding off illness. But new research shows that in people with cancer, the vitamin may do more harm than good. Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York studied the effects of vitamin C on cancer cells. As it turns out, the vitamin seems to protect not just healthy cells, but cancer cells, too. The findings were published today in the journal Cancer Research. “The use of vitamin C supplements could have the potential to reduce the ability of patients to respond to therapy,” said Dr. Mark Heaney, an associate attending physician at the cancer center. Dr. Heaney and his colleagues tested five different chemotherapy drugs on cancer cells in the laboratory. Some of the cells were first treated with vitamin C. In every case, including a test of the powerful new cancer drug Gleevec, chemotherapy did not work as well if cells had been exposed to vitamin C. The chemotherapy agents killed 30 to 70 percent fewer cancer cells when the cells were treated with the vitamin. A second set of experiments implanted cancer cells in mice. They found that the tumors grew more rapidly in mice that were given cancer cells pretreated with vitamin C. The researchers found that just like healthy cells, cancer cells also benefit from vitamin C. The vitamin appeared to repair a cancer cell’s damaged mitochondria, the energy center [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-01T07:50:57-07:00October, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Eating walnuts slows cancer growth, laboratory study finds

Source: news.biocompare.com Author: staff Snack-sized quantities of walnuts slow cancer growth in mice, reports a Marshall University pilot study published in the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal Nutrition and Cancer. Researcher W. Elaine Hardman, Ph.D., of Marshall's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine said the study was designed to determine whether mice that got part of their calories by eating walnuts had slower breast cancer growth than a group eating a diet more typical of the American diet. "When we fed the mice the walnuts, the growth rate of the tumors they had was dramatically suppressed," Hardman said. The mice ate a diet in which 18.5 percent of the daily calories -- the equivalent of two servings for humans -- came from walnuts. Tumors in the walnut-fed group took twice as long to double in size as tumors in the control group, the article reports. The study is believed to be the first to look at the impact of walnut consumption on cancer growth. "It's always very good to find something that will slow the growth of tumors without being toxic chemotherapy," said Hardman, who has spent 15 years studying the role of diet in cancer. Walnuts have at least three components that could account for their cancer-slowing effect, Hardman said. They are high in omega-3 fatty acids, which have been shown to slow cancer growth. They also include antioxidants and components called phytosterols, both of which have shown cancer-slowing effects in other studies. While the pilot study was [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-30T06:59:48-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

New findings show cancer prevention effects of black raspberries, blueberries, olive leaves and green tea

Source: www.naturalnews.com Author: David Gutierrez Three studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Philadelphia have demonstrated the powerful cancer-fighting benefits of dark berries, green tea and olive leaves, and suggest that gels and beverages may some day be used to prevent against cancer and tumor growth. In the first study, researchers from Ohio State University discovered that a gel based on freeze-dried black raspberries helps prevent precancerous mouth tumors (lesions) from becoming malignant. "This gel appears to be a valid means of delivering anthocyanins and other cancer-preventing compounds directly to precancerous cells, since it slowed or reduced lesion progression in about two-thirds of study participants," said researcher Susan Mallery. According to the American Cancer Society, oral squamous cell carcinoma is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, causing 7,500 deaths each year in the United States. Because no chemopreventive agent or treatment method other than radical mouth surgery exists, even those who survive the cancer often emerge significantly disfigured. And even in many cases where tumors are fully removed, they still recur. "Oral cancer is a debilitating disease and there is a desperate need for early detection and management of precancerous lesions," said Mallery. Most mouth cancer begins as small, noncancerous lesions in the mouth that are difficult to detect. It was these lesions that were treated in the Ohio State University study. Researchers carried out the study on 20 participants who had identifiable precancerous mouth lesions [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-29T18:53:12-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Knicks Prez Donnie Walsh had oral cancer surgery soon after draft

Source: www.pacersdigest.com Author: Peter Vecsey Donnie Walsh asked me not to make a big deal of this when I requested permission to break the news . . . so I won't . . . though, I'm sure we all agree, it is a big deal. Four days after last June's draft, the Knicks' president, 67, entered Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and went under the knife for one hour. An uncontrollable 50-year urge to smoke vanished along with the cancerous part of his tongue. "My doctor says he got it all," Walsh said. "Luckily, it was caught quickly before it could spread. Numerous pre- and post-op scans of his head and neck concurred it had been contained. Physically, Walsh is almost back to normal. His mouth remains a little numb and his speech only betrays him when a conversation becomes lengthy. "It's like I have marbles in my mouth. But you can't really tell there's something missing unless I stick out my tongue." "Spare me," I promptly replied, "I'll take your word for it. "Something tells me your French kissing days may be over." Consensual gallows humor between New Yorkers who've been friends for almost half their adult lives is not only expected but required. Anything to lighten his psychological load is licensed; Donnie's stare down with mortality admittedly shook him up like the grade-school nuns who habitually harped on the Hereafter. Two of Donnie's closest college buddies died in the past three years. Additionally, an inordinately large percentage of his [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-29T18:52:48-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s HPV vaccine Gardasil(R) wins Prix Galien award

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: staff The two HPV vaccines currently licensed for use in the UK were jointly awarded the coveted Prix Galien Medal for Innovation at a ceremony held on Wednesday evening in the Palace of Westminster, House of Commons. "We are absolutely delighted at the recognition given to the world's leading HPV vaccine Gardasil® - this award reflects the work of many people, all around the world, involved in making the dream of a cancer vaccine a reality", said Dr Nicholas Kitchin, Medical Director, accepting the award on behalf of the Sanofi Pasteur MSD team. "Both companies have developed the technology of HPV vaccines down different paths," he continued, "we chose a quadrivalent vaccine strategy, targeting a broader range of HPV-related genital disease than cervical cancer alone, with the aim of delivering additional benefits for patients and healthcare systems." The joint award for the two HPV vaccines, developed by Sanofi Pasteur MSD and GSK, was presented by Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Health. The distinguished panel of seven judges, chaired by Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, selected the HPV vaccines as the winners from seven innovative products that reached the final. Vaccines have won in four of the last five Prix Galien awards and the UK award for Gardasil® follows similar success in Prix Galien competitions in the USA and France. Current experience with the four-type HPV vaccine Thirty years after the discovery that human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical cancer, 15 years after the start [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-29T18:53:38-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

HPV increases men’s risk for oral cancer, prompts calls for vaccine: pathology expert Dr. Shashi Pawar on HPV health concerns for men

Source: www.prweb.com Author: press release HPV, the human papillomavirus, is well known for its role in causing cervical cancer in women - so much so, in fact, that the National Institutes of Health recommend all girls be vaccinated against the virus when they are 11 or 12, prior to becoming sexually active. However, recent research shows that women are not the only ones at risk for developing HPV-related cancers. Oral cancers caused by the virus are increasing rapidly in men, and researchers suggest HPV may soon overtake tobacco use as the leading cause of these cancers of the mouth, tongue, throat and tonsils. "The human papillomavirus is one of the most insidious and dangerous sexually transmitted diseases for women, as it has been linked to a vast majority of cervical cancers," explains Dr. Shashi Pawar, PhD, FACMG, Director of Genetics at Acupath Laboratories. "We are now seeing the effects of HPV infection in men, and the marked increase in oral cancer - coupled with the well-known increased risk for penile and anal cancers - suggests that both sexes face equally serious health consequences from this virus," Dr. Pawar notes. Cumulative research spurs call for men's vaccine A benchmark study that tracked more than 30 years of oral cancer data from the National Cancer Institute found that the rate of oral cancer caused by the HPV virus, rather than lifestyle habits such as smoking or chewing tobacco, has risen steadily since 1973 and is now about even with the incidence rate [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-05-08T19:03:42-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Smoking impact images to appear on cigarette packs

Source: www.politics.co.uk Author: staff The government wants to shock smokers into quitting by putting graphic pictures of the damage caused by smoking on cigarette packs. From Wednesday picture warnings will begin replacing the written warnings currently on packets in a bid to improve on the 1.9 million fewer smokers seen since 1982. The new images show rotting teeth and lungs, throat cancer and a 'flaccid cigarette' – the "grim reality" of the effects smoking can have on health, as chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson says. "These new stark picture warnings emphasise the harsh health realities of continuing to smoke. I hope they will make many more think hard about giving up, and get the help they need to stop smoking for good." Britain is not the first country to use graphic warnings: Canada introduced them in 2001 and saw 31 per cent of ex-smokers claiming the pictures had motivated them to quit. Anti-smoking campaigners have welcomed the images, which come into force from October 1st. Action on Smoking and Health's (Ash) director Deborah Arnott backed existing evidence suggesting the images make smokers quit. And she called on the government to legislate to require the removal of pack branding to maximise their impact, as research shows this has the greatest impact. Cancer Research UK's head of tobacco control, Elspeth Lee, said her organisation would back an amendment to current EU legislation allowing picture warnings to be placed on the front as well as the back of packs, as in Australia [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-28T21:26:53-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

Selective neck dissection effective for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with regional metastases

Source: www.docguide.com Author: Mary Beth Nierengarten Selective neck dissection, rather than comprehensive neck dissection, is an effective treatment for many patients with regional nodal metastases from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, investigators reported here at the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) 2008 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO. Lead author Peter Shepard, MD, Department of Surgery, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison, Wisconsin, presented the study findings in a poster session on September 21. In their study, Dr. Shepard and colleagues retrospectively evaluated 156 patients with clinically-positive regional nodal metastases from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in whom neck dissection was part of the initial treatment. Of the 156 patients, 69 underwent selective neck dissection (SND) and 87 underwent radical or modified radical neck dissection (R/MRND). Most patients (81%) also received postoperative radiotherapy. Overall, regional recurrences occurred in 8.6% of patients who underwent SND and 22% of patients who underwent R/MRND. When adjusting for differences in nodal and primary tumour stage, year of surgery, primary tumour site, extracapsular spread, and postoperative radiotherapy, multivariate analysis showed a significantly lower regional recurrence rate in the SND group (P = .02). No statistically significant differences were seen in overall survival; 5-year overall survival for SND and R/MRND of 47% and 33%, respectively (P = .14). Similarly, no significant differences were found in local control or distant local control, with 3-year local control rates of 87% and 83% (P = .89) and distant control rates of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-09-28T21:26:35-07:00September, 2008|Oral Cancer News|

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