Oral Cancer Foundation News Team – A – Page 78

Asia’s deadly secret: the scourge of the betel nut

Source: www.bbc.com Author: staff It is used by almost a tenth of the world's population. It gives people a buzz equivalent to six cups of coffee and is used variously as a symbol of love, marriage and a cure for indigestion and impotence. But it is also leading tens of thousands to an early grave. The culprit? The humble betel nut. Found across Asia, these nuts are harvested from the Areca palm and are chewed for their warming glow and stimulating properties. Such is its effectiveness, that alongside nicotine, alcohol and caffeine, betel nuts are believed to be one of the most popular mind-altering substances in the world. Although used by women and children, the nuts are especially popular among working-age men, who chew to stay awake through long hours of driving, fishing or working on construction sites. But the short-lived benefits come at a terrible cost. High rates of oral cancer are destroying the lives of many who buy betel nuts, often decades after their first taste. Now in Taiwan, where the nuts are affectionately known as 'Taiwan's chewing gum', the government is taking action to curb this centuries-old habit and reduce the thousands of lives lost each year. Dangerous combination Regular betel nut chewers stand out from the crowd with their red-stained lips and teeth The betel nut is a key part of many Asian cultures and can be consumed dried, fresh or wrapped up in a package known as a quid. Although the exact preparation [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-23T06:12:23-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Cure Possible for Some HPV-Positive Oropharyngeal Cancers

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Fran Lowry In a subset of patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer, the goal of achieving a "cure" is a realistic one, even in patients who have limited distant metastases, a prospective study has shown. Of the patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer and distant metastases, 10% survived more than 2 years after intensive treatment, which the researchers defined as a cure. The study was presented at the 5th International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) in Nice, France. The research was praised by Jean Bourhis, MD, head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Centre Hospitalier Université Vaudois in Lucerne, Switzerland, and cochair of the ICHNO conference scientific committee. "This important piece of research adds substantially to what we know about the role and the importance of the human papillomavirus in oropharyngeal cancers and gives real hope of improvement in both diagnosis and treatment to those who are affected by the condition," he said in a statement. This study, from a world-leading group of head and neck cancer experts, is very interesting, and related to relevant clinical and interdisciplinary questions," said Daniel Zips, MD, professor of radiation oncology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. "HPV status is also important for the management of metastatic disease," he told Medscape Medical News. He agrees that for some patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, using the researchers' definition, a cure is possible. "I also agree that the results from this study might begin to change [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-12T07:00:10-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Study finds how T cells cause inflammation with oral candidiasis

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: Donna Domino, Features Editor Ohio dental researchers have found a method to study how T cells cause inflammation during oral candidiasis infections, according to a new study in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (February 18, 2015). The discovery could lead to new therapies or drugs that may improve the functioning of weakened immune systems. Pushpa Pandiyan, PhD, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve School of Dental Medicine, and colleagues worked on mice to find a new way to model how T cells, the white blood cells critical for the body's immune system, cause inflammation. Pandiyan's previous work focused on isolating different types of oral T cells for study. In the latest study, the researchers injected T cells into genetically engineered immunodeficient mice to test how the cells function when fighting Candida albicans, a fungus found in about 60% of the population but controlled by a functioning immune system. The infection becomes a particular health problem for people with the HIV/AIDS infection, cancer patients with immune systems weakened by chemotherapy, or those born with no immune defenses. The researchers investigated how IL-17a (T helper 17, or Th17 cells, a type of T cells that secrete a cytokine) and T regulatory cells (Tregs) controlled the fungal infection and inflammation, respectively. "Although Th17 cells are required for antifungal immunity, uncontrolled Th17 cells have been implicated with such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, lupus, psoriasis, cancers, and irritable bowel disease," Pandiyan said in a statement. The immunodeficient mice were infected with [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-12T06:24:36-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Tufts dental school to add oral medicine residency program

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff The Tufts University School of Dental Medicine will begin enrolling students in its new Advanced Education Program in Oral Medicine in July 2016, according to a Tufts Daily article. The program is a two-year postgraduate certificate with the option for a three-year master's degree track, according to the university. Teaching students how to treat oral symptoms of various diseases and conditions is the aim of the program. The program teaches dentists to be responsible for the early detection and diagnosis of oral cancer and other malignancies that manifest in the oral cavity. Dentists will be trained to treat the oral manifestations of infectious diseases, including HIV; autoimmune and immune-related diseases such as lupus; and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. Bhavik Desai, DMD, PhD, an assistant professor of oral medicine and temporomandibular joint disorder at the Virginia Commonwealth School of Dentistry, will begin as the program director on July 1. Oral medicine is not yet recognized as a specialty by the ADA; the American Academy of Oral Medicine (AAOM) oversees the discipline and is responsible for certifying dentists in the field, according to Interim Program Director Arwa Farag. The program received accreditation from the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) in August 2014. The AAOM has encouraged the expansion of training programs, because there are only six other dental schools in the U.S. that offer training in oral medicine. Only 3% of hospitals with cancer programs have oral medicine specialists, and patients are often directed to other [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-25T08:59:31-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Researchers propose new staging model for HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: Donna Domino Researchers are proposing a new tumor-staging model for predicting the outcomes and guiding treatments for patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer (OPC), according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Since HPV-related cancer differs significantly from smoking-related cancer, less intensive treatment strategies may be more appropriate, the study authors concluded. Treatment regimens for oropharyngeal cancer have intensified over time and carry a toxicity burden, the Canadian researchers noted. In the last few years, research has found that oropharyngeal cancer caused by HPV behaves differently than OPC caused by smoking and alcohol, yet both cancers use the same tumor classification model. Therefore, regardless of whether the OPC was caused by HPV or smoking, the treatment and perceived prognosis based on tumor staging has remained the same, even though patient outcomes vary considerably, the study authors noted (Journal of Clinical Oncology, February 10, 2015, Vol. 31:5, pp. 543-550). A new tumor-staging model will help separate patients with promising prognoses from those with negative ones to design the most appropriate treatment strategies for each group, according to the researchers from Toronto's Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. The researchers analyzed 899 oropharyngeal cancer patients, including 505 (56%) patients with HPV who had been treated with radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy from 2001 to 2009. The HPV-positive patients (382) had higher recurrence-free survival rates after about four years compared with HPV-negative patients (123). Disease recurrence was 16.7% (64) among HPV-positive patients; 38.2% among HPV-negative patients (47). The tumor staging [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-25T08:55:13-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Lawmaker proposes ‘smokeless tobacco’ ban at all baseball venues

Source: www.santacruzsentinel.com Author: David E. Early, Bay Area News Group For decades, Major League Baseball’s goofy love affair with chewing tobacco was so passionate that the gooey stuff was stocked by teams in clubhouses as surely as jocks and socks. Nearly all ball players had golf-ball-sized cheek bumps, and part of the show was spitting streams of saliva in dugouts from coast to coast. But now the end may be near. If a bill formally introduced in the state Capitol Tuesday becomes law, the use of “smokeless tobacco” will be banned in every baseball venue in the state — from San Jose sandlots to San Francisco’s AT&T Park. They would join minor league parks, which already outlaw it. “This is all about helping young people. We want to stop youth from being exposed to cancer,” said freshman Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, author of the bill. “Kids emulate ball players. If they see them use it, they will use it as well.” The legislation was touted Tuesday at news conferences in Sacramento and San Francisco, where leaders of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids took the podium. Their program, called “Knock Tobacco Out of the Park,” included commentary about oral cancer taking down beloved Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, a retired San Diego Padre, in 2014 at age 54. And now retired Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is battling cancer that he openly blames on his longtime chewing habit. Opio Dupree, Thurmond’s chief of staff, said Tuesday that the penalties for violating [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-25T08:49:21-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Great American Spit Out warns of new tobacco lures

Source: www.orlandosentinel.com Author: Kate Santich, Orlando Sentinel As anti-tobacco advocates celebrate today's Great American Spit Out — the "chew" equivalent of the Great American Smoke Out — health officials warn that new dissolvable and flavored varieties of smokeless-tobacco products are targeting teens in a mission to get them hooked. Newly released data from state health researchers show that, while cigarette smoking among Florida youth has reached an all-time low, smokeless tobacco use has been virtually unchanged for the past decade: roughly 5.5 percent among high school students statewide. And it's nearly 9 percent in some counties, including Lake. "The tobacco industry is targeting us," said Magi Linscott, a Pensacola-area 18-year-old named National Youth Advocate for 2014 by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "They're trying to get a new generation of addicts." Recent product developments include colorfully packaged, kid-friendly flavors of tobacco-infused candy, mints, gum, breath strips and flavored toothpicks — all containing nicotine. Depending on the type, they are designed to be held in the mouth, chewed, or sucked until they dissolve and the juices swallowed. Along with more traditional chew, snuff and a teabag-like pouch of finely ground tobacco called snus ("snoose"), smokeless products may lure users with a false sense of safety. Shannon Hughes, Tobacco Free Florida bureau chief, said young people — and their parents — may not realize the dangers of the products, which increase the risk of oral cancer by 80 percent. "Adults think, 'Well, at least they're not smoking,'" Hughes said. "Yes, cigarettes do [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-21T08:34:54-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer patients rarely request unnecessary testing

Source: www.cancernetwork.com Author: Anna Azvolinsky, PhD A new study suggests that cancer patients tend not to request unnecessary and sometimes costly tests or treatments. Of the 5,050 interactions between a clinician and patient analyzed, only 1% resulted in a patient request for a clinically unnecessary or inappropriate test or therapy. Clinicians complied with only 7 of 50 requests (14%). The study goes against a common assumption that the high cost of healthcare in the United States is partly due to extra or unnecessary treatments and analyses done as a result of patients’ requests. The results of the study were published in JAMA Oncology. Researcher Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues analyzed a total of 5,050 outpatient interactions among 60 clinicians and 3,624 patients that occurred between October 2013 and June 2014 at three Philadelphia-area hospitals. The 60 clinicians—34 oncologists, 11 oncology fellows, and 15 nurse practitioners and physician assistants—were interviewed by trained research assistants on each patient-clinician encounter. “We decided to look specifically at cancer patients’ demands because oncology is a setting where there are life-and-death stakes for patients and the drugs and tests can get very expensive,” said Emanuel in a statement. “However, we found, contrary to expectations, that patient demands are low and cannot be a key driver of increasing healthcare costs.” Most of the patients in the study were women (58.7%), and of the 5,050 encounters, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-21T07:59:44-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Novel endoscope gives clearer view of cancers

Source: optics.org Author: Tim Hayes An endoscope under development by a team from the University at Buffalo combines imaging ability with light delivery, as a means to improve both cancer detection and the efficient treatment of tumors once they have been discovered. The platform employs spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) as a means to improve the low-contrast image quality that some endoscopic systems are prone to. But it can also deliver a pulse of light of the necessary strength and intensity to burst nanoballoons of lipid-encapsulated drugs at the tumor site. SFDI is a relatively new technique that allows quantitative, depth-resolved measurements of tissue absorption and scattering parameters, as well as imaging of exogenously administrated fluorescence contrast agents, according to Ulas Sunar of Buffalo's Biomedical Engineering department. "The technique directs sinusoidal patterns of light at a tissue surface at multiple spatial frequencies, and measures a frequency-dependent tissue response that, once processed, yields information about the optical absorption and scattering parameters. This information can be much like a fingerprint," Sunar commented. "Quantifying absorption and scattering parameters is very important, since it allows an accurate determination of light propagation and attenuation in living tissue." SFDI can also quantify absolute fluorescence concentrations of exogenous agents, such as drugs that have been allowed to accumulate in cancerous tissues - an approach usually hindered by deterioration of the raw fluorescence signal thanks to strong tissue absorption and scatter. Knowledge of these concentrations is very useful, since drug distribution can allow better localization of the disease, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-21T07:51:31-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Possibility of cure For HPV positive throat cancer patients—new research

Source: au.ibtimes.com Author: Samantha Richardson A new research conducted by Dr. Sophie Huang, assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University of Toronto, Canada revealed that throat cancer caused by the Human Papilloma virus (HPV+) can possibly be cured. The research is of utmost importance as it is the first to provide substantial evidence to prove that patients suffering from oropharynx cancer can be healed. The disease also spreads to other parts of the body. The press release disclosed that the tumours remain passive and go undetected for over two years in most case, which makes it incurable. The research was presented at the 5th International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) on Friday. She states that cure is possible among patients suffering from oropharyngeal cancer is possible for the first time. "Our research, the largest study to date to explore survival predictors for metastatic HPV+ and HPV- oropharyngeal cancer patients,” says Dr. Huang. For the research, 934 patients suffering from HPV+ OPC were studied. All subjects were patients treated at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre between 2000 and 2011. The researchers found two types of distinct metastases or tumours in other parts of the body away from the source in HPV+ patients: "explosive" and "indolent" metastases. The former grows and spreads quicker while the latter is slower and manifests itself as oligometastasis. However, they found the lung as the most common metastatic site in both HPV+ and HPV- patients. According [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-02-21T07:44:17-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

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