Oral Cancer News – Page 163

Maura L. Gillison, M.D., Ph.D., Receives AACR’s Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award

Source: AACR News CHICAGO — The American Association for Cancer Research will award Maura L. Gillison, M.D., Ph.D., with the 36th Annual AACR Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Memorial Award during the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held here March 31 – April 4. Gillison is receiving this award in recognition of her significant contributions to the understanding of the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in head and neck cancers. Gillison’s award lecture, “Clinical implications of HPV in head and neck cancers,” will take place at 10 a.m. CT on Wednesday, April 4 in room S100 of the McCormick Place Convention Center. “It is an honor to be the recipient of this award,” said Gillison. “Our team strives to generate data that will improve the lives of individuals affected by head and neck cancers, and this is a wonderful validation that we are on the right track.” This award is designed to provide incentive to young investigators early in their careers. It was established in 1977 by the AACR and the Rosenthal Family Foundation to recognize research that has made, or promises to make, a notable contribution to improved clinical care in the field of cancer. Gillison is a professor of medicine, epidemiology and otolaryngology and the Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute in Columbus, Ohio. She is also adjunct faculty at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore, Md. Her [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-23T09:31:04-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Grant Achatz Drops Malpractice Suits After Four-Year Battle

Source: Crain's Chicago Business Renowned chef Grant Achatz, whose successful battle with tongue cancer added an unusual twist to his story, has dropped his medical malpractice lawsuits filed against Chicago dentists. Mr. Achatz sued two dentists and their practices in April 2008 in Cook County Circuit Court for negligence. He claimed neither took the steps necessary to diagnose his cancer. He sought damages in excess of $50,000 plus court costs. The last of the suits, one filed against Dr. Loveline Dulay and her Wilmette practice, was dismissed Wednesday, according to another defendant's attorney. The medical malpractice trial had already started with jury selection under way, the attorney said. Mr. Achatz's attorney, Chuck Hornewer of Phillips Law Offices of Chicago, declined to comment. Mr. Achatz and his business partner Nick Kokonas opened Alinea in 2005. While it was accumulating accolades from around the country (and eventually from around the world), Mr. Achatz noticed a painful lesion on his tongue. In November 2005 he visited Dr. Dulay, who did not order a biopsy, a decision that Mr. Achatz said was negligent, according to his original complaint. In July 2006, he visited Dr. Michelle Schwartz at Bucktown Wicker Park Dental Associates, who also did not order a biopsy. Mr. Achatz believed she was also negligent, according to the original complaint. By 2007, he was diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer, and doctors found the cancer metastasized to his neck. He took part in a University of Chicago clinical trial that used radiation and [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-22T15:24:48-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Wider Surgical Margins Better for Early Tongue Cancer

Source: Dr.Biscuspid.com Wider surgical margins for early tongue tumors may reduce local recurrence and improve survival for most early-stage (T1 or T2) oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) tumors, according to a new study in the Journal of Laryngology & Otology. Oral tongue SCC is usually treated with initial surgical resection with or without post-operative chemo- and radiotherapy. Regional recurrences occur in approximately one in four patients with T1 or T2 oral tongue SCC, justifying aggressive treatment, according to the study authors from the University of Melbourne (JLO, March 2012, Vol. 126:3, pp. 289-294). “We feel that wider surgical margins may be justified, being the only prognostic factor that surgeons have the ability to improve.” Among the most important histological factors that impact the prognosis for early oral cancer are lymph node metastases, extracapsular extension, and close or involved surgical margins, they noted. "Although other factors have an impact on adjuvant treatment, surgical margins is the only factor that may be improved by the surgeon," they wrote. Traditionally, a 1-cm margin is taken in all planes around a macroscopic or palpable oral tongue SCC, the study authors noted. Pathologists and clinicians have agreed to define involved margins as less than 1 mm and close margins as 5 mm or less, while margins greater than 5 mm are designated as clear. However, mucosal margins shrink by approximately 30% to 50% with formalin fixation and slide preparation. This results in a final pathological margin of approximately 5 mm where the surgeon measured [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-22T09:18:39-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Court: Tobacco Health Labels Constitutional

Source: Reuters.com Combination picture of new graphic cigarette packages, released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration June 21, 2011, shows a varied collection of a man on a ventilator, diseased lungs and dead bodies were among the graphic images for revamped U.S. tobacco labels, unveiled by health officials who hope the warnings will help smokers quit. Credit: Reuters/U.S. Food and Drug Administration/Handout By Terry Baynes (Reuters) - A U.S. law requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising does not violate the free speech rights of tobacco companies, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday. Cigarette makers had sued to stop the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new labeling and advertising requirements on grounds the rules violated their First Amendment right to communicate with adult tobacco consumers. But the Cincinnati-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the bulk of the FDA's new regulatory framework, including the requirement that tobacco companies include large warning images on cigarette packs. The decision comes on the heels of a Washington, D.C., judge's ruling in a different, but related, case that rejected the FDA requirements and seems to set up a clash over the constitutionality of the FDA rules. Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for Lorillard, noted the difference in tone in the two rulings and said the 6th Circuit case, the Washington case, or both, would likely end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The difference in the two cases is that the FDA had not introduced the specific [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-21T10:43:06-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

AAP Now Recommends HPV Vaccine for Boys and Girls

Source: HemOnc Today The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases issued an updated policy statement on human papillomavirus vaccination that recommends both boys and girls be immunized. The policy statement notes vaccination reduces the incidence of sexually transmitted infections and reduces cancer risk. “Persistent infection with high-risk HPV types is responsible for most cervical and anal cancers in females,” the statement reads. “In males, high-risk HPV types are responsible for a large proportion of cancers of the mouth and pharynx, which are increasing in recent years, and of anal and penile cancers.” There currently is one approved HPV vaccine (HPV4; Gardasil, Merck) for boys and two vaccines — HPV4 and HPV2 (Cervarix, GlaxoSmithKline) — approved for girls. The committee recommended that: Girls aged 11 to 12 years should receive three doses of HPV2 or HPV4 — administered intramuscularly at 0, 1 to 2, and 6 months — even if they already are sexually active. Boys aged 11 to 12 years should receive three doses of HPV4 using the same schedule. Females aged 13 to 26 years and males aged 13 to 21 years who were not previously immunized or who are missing a vaccination should complete the full series. Men aged 22 to 26 years who were not immunized previously or who are missing a vaccination may receive the HPV4 series, but “cost-efficacy models do not justify a stronger recommendation in this age group.” The policy statement recommended that women who receive the vaccine continue to undergo cervical [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-21T10:35:17-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Viruses recruited as killers of tumors

Source: nytimes.com Author: Rachel Nuwer In 1951, a 4-year-old boy with leukemia contracted chickenpox. His liver and spleen, swollen by the cancer, soon returned to normal, and his elevated blood cell count fell to that of a healthy child. His doctors at the Laboratory of Experimental Oncology in San Francisco were thrilled by his sudden remission, but the blessing was short-lived. After one month, his leukemia returned and progressed rapidly until the child’s death. In the early 1900s, not much could be done for cancer patients. Unless surgeons could excise a tumor, the disease typically spelled a swift and inevitable end. But in dozens of published cases over the years, doctors noticed a peculiar trend: Struggling cancer patients sometimes enjoyed a brief reprieve from their malignancies when they caught a viral infection. It was not a coincidence. Common viruses sometimes attack tumor cells, researchers discovered. For decades, they tried to harness this phenomenon, to transform it into a cancer treatment. Now, after a long string of failures, they are nearing success with viruses engineered to kill cancer. “It’s a very exciting time,” said Dr. Robert Martuza, chief neurosurgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. “I think it will work out in some tumor, with some virus.” Candidates are already in advanced trials, he noted. Cancer cells are able to replicate wildly, but there’s a trade-off: They cannot ward off infection as effectively as healthy cells. So scientists have been looking for ways to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-03-20T12:21:26-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Nearly 800,000 Deaths Prevented Due to Declines in Smoking

Source: National Cancer Institute Twentieth-century tobacco control programs and policies were responsible for preventing more than 795,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States from 1975 through 2000, according to an analysis funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. If all cigarette smoking in this country had ceased following the release of the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health in 1964, a total of 2.5 million people would have been spared from death due to lung cancer in the 36 years following that report, according to the analysis. The results of this study were published online March 14, 2012, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “These findings provide a compelling illustration of the devastating impact of tobacco use in our nation and the enormous benefits of reducing rates of smoking,” said Robert Croyle, Ph.D., director of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at NCI. “Although great strides have been made, we cannot relax our efforts. The prevention and cessation of tobacco use continue to be vital priorities for the medical, scientific, and public health communities.” The researchers, part of the NCI-sponsored Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET), utilized a comparative modeling approach in which they constructed detailed cigarette smoking histories for individuals born from 1890 through 1970, and then related the histories to lung cancer mortality in mathematical models. Using these models, the researchers were able to estimate the impact of changes in smoking patterns resulting [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-19T09:45:14-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

New indicator may help Identify patients with increased risk from throat cancer

Source: www.onclive.com Author: staff Patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma who had "matted" lymph nodes -- nodes that are connected together -- are more likely to metastasize than those without matted lymph nodes, according to a study published online in the journal Head & Neck. Metastases account for about 45% of the deaths among patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma, wrote Douglas B. Chepeha, MD, MPH, an associate professor of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. "Our findings may help doctors identify patients who are at higher risk for having their cancer metastasize and who would benefit from additional systemic therapy," he said, adding that the opposite was also true -- those without matted nodes might benefit from reducing therapy. The researchers tracked 78 patients who were part of a clinical trial evaluating 2 cancer drugs with intensity-modulated radiation therapy. All of the treatment-naive patients had stage III-IV squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx. Sixteen of the 78 patients had matted nodes. They found that patients with matted nodes had a 69% survival rate over 3 years, compared with 94% for patients without matted nodes. The risk was independent of other prognostic factors, such as the patient's history of smoking, alcohol use, or human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Matted nodes appear to be an especially strong indicator of increased risk among patients who are HPV-positive. However, HPVpositive patients had better overall outcomes than HPV-negative patients did. The patients with the best outcomes were HPV-positive [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-03-19T07:12:42-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Studies underscore genetic complexity of head and neck squamous cell cancers

Source: Dentistry IQ By Maria Perno Goldie, RDH, MS While we should be screening patients for oral and pharyngeal cancer daily, April has been designated as the month when we highlight this disease, and increase awareness about its prevention and treatment. Powerful new technologies that pinpoint the connections between human genes and diseases have clarified the background of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that force the development of certain types of malignancies. Several major biomedical centers have collaborated to study head and neck squamous cell cancer. Their large-scale analysis has revealed a surprising new set of mutations involved in this disease. The studies underscored the genetic complexity of head and neck squamous cell cancers. Two independent, multi-institution research teams identified a large number of genetic defects associated with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), the most common form of head and neck cancer. The researchers sequenced the entire protein-coding regions, or exomes, of the DNA in dozens of patient tissue samples.(1,2) Tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are known risk factors for HNSCC, including cancers occuring in the mouth and throat. The 5-year survival rate for many types of HNSCC has improved little over the past 40 years. According to the authors, the degree of differentiation, or tumor cell grade, has never consistently been shown to be a clinical prognostic factor in HNSCC. They said it was surprising to find mutations in a series of genes that appear to contribute to differentiation. Both [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-03-15T12:57:26-07:00March, 2012|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Oral gel contains cancer-preventing compounds derived from black raspberries

Source: www.dentistryiq.com Author: Maria Perno Goldie, RDH, MS, with the assistance of Allison Walker Maria Perno Goldie (MPG): I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Susan Mallery, who is a humble as she is intelligent. I had the assistance of Allison Walker, a freelance journalist who has been involved in dental publishing for more than 20 years. Dr. Susan Mallery (SM) is a Professor in the Division of Oral Surgery, Oral Pathology, and Anesthesiology at The Ohio State University, College of Dentistry, in Columbus, Ohio. Her research interests include oral cancer initiation, AIDS-related oral cancer and chemoprevention. Dr. Mallery has published articles in journals such as Cancer Research, Cancer Prevention Research, Molecular Pharmaceutics, Carcinogenesis and Clinical Cancer Research, to name a few. She graduated from The Ohio State University with her DDS and later returned to receive her oral pathology specialty training and a PhD in Pathology. Dr. Mallery is licensed by the Ohio State Dental Board and board certified by the American Board of Oral Pathology and American Academy of Oral Pathology. She belongs to the American Academy of Oral Pathology, American Board of Oral Pathology, American Association for Cancer Research, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a consultant at The Ohio State University and James Cancer hospitals. MPG: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) will be diagnosed in more than 36,000 Americans this year and has a particularly high mortality rate—as it will kill approximately 8,000 patients this year. As [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-03-15T11:56:00-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|