Oral Cancer News – Page 173

Quality-of-Life Outcomes in Transoral Robotic Surgery

Source: SAGE Journals Online Abstract Objective. To report long-term, health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) outcomes in patients treated with transoral robotic surgery (TORS). Study Design. Prospective, longitudinal, clinical study on functional and HRQOL outcomes in TORS. Setting. University tertiary care facility. Subjects and Methods. Patients who underwent TORS were asked to complete a Head and Neck Cancer Inventory before treatment and at 3 weeks and 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively. Demographic, clinicopathological, and follow-up data were collected. Results. Sixty-four patients who underwent TORS were enrolled. A total of 113 TORS procedures were performed. The mean follow-up time was 16.3 ± 7.49 months. The HRQOL was assessed at 3 weeks and at 3, 6, and 12 months, with a response rate of 78%, 44%, 41%, and 28%, respectively. TORS was performed most frequently for squamous cell carcinoma (88%). There was a decrease from baseline in the speech, eating, aesthetic, social, and overall QOL domains immediately after treatment. At the 1-year follow-up, the HRQOL scores in the aesthetic, social, and overall QOL domains were in the high domain. Patients with malignant lesions had significantly lower postoperative HRQOL scores in the speech, eating, social, and overall QOL domains (P < .05). Patients who underwent adjuvant radiation therapy or chemotherapy and radiation therapy had lower postoperative scores in the eating, social, and overall QOL domains (P < .05). Conclusion. The preliminary data show that patients who undergo TORS for malignancies and receive adjuvant therapy tend to have lower HRQOL outcomes. TORS is a promising, minimally [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-27T10:58:43-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Biosciences aims to lower oral cancer mortality with simple screening test

Source: www.proactiveinvestors.com Author: Amanda Brandon Vigilant Biosciences is a privately held medical technology company based in Norcross, Georgia focused on improving healthcare products to improve patient care. Their most recent research efforts center on early oral cancer detection. In the United States, approximately 37,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer this year and its most common risk factor is exposure to the human papillomavirus (HPV). Nearly 40 percent of oral cancer patients will die within five years of diagnosis. The high mortality rate for oral cancer is due to late discovery of the malignancy. In its early stages, the disease can either present no symptoms or the symptoms are often mistaken for other conditions. VigilantBIO is currently trialing an easy-to-use, low-cost and noninvasive oral cancer screening product which tests the saliva (a very desirable biofluid). The patient and practitioners (e.g. dentists, hygienists, periodontists) benefit from the simplicity of the test – no venipuncture means higher test participation and no specialized staff is required to perform the test. In the oral clinical setting, this is ideal because it does not interfere with chair turnover ratio. In addition, test results can be delivered at the point of care. When oral cancer is detected early, patients experience an 80-90 percent survival rate. Combined with the lowered treatment cost (an estimated 36 percent) and easy-to-implement product for oral care practitioners, the early detection product appears to be a winner for all involved. With two clinical trials in process at the University of Miami, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-22T15:21:40-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Consider dental issues before beginning cancer treatment

Soure: www.curetoday.com/ Author: Lacey Meyer Dentists advise resolving tooth and gum issues before starting cancer treatment. Bettye Davis admits she has never had very good teeth. But when she received a diagnosis of salivary gland cancer, she was surprised that her oncologist recommended she visit a dentist before beginning radiation treatments to her jaw. “When we first saw her, she still had quite a few teeth, but she had severe periodontal disease and severe bone loss,” says Dennis Abbott, DDS, Davis’ dentist. Knowing radiation would do more damage, he recommended removing the remainder of her teeth and allowing time to heal before she began 33 radiation treatments. “We knew that if we took the teeth out after radiation, we risked the bone not healing well, which would have meant osteonecrosis, dead bone in her mouth, and lots of systemic problems.” According to the National Cancer Institute, eliminating pre-existing dental and mucosal infections and instituting a comprehensive oral hygiene protocol before and throughout therapy can reduce the severity and frequency of oral complications from cancer therapy. Abbott says the NCI recommendations, as well as an increasing number of studies, are bringing more recognition to the importance of dental issues before, during and after cancer treatment. A Proactive Approach Abbott’s goal is to help patients maintain healthy teeth and reduce the risk of future infection with an oral care plan that eliminates or stabilizes disease that could produce complications during or following therapy. These complications can range from irradiated bone and gums [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-22T15:08:57-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Girls-Only Vaccine Could Be Best Weapon Against HPV

Source: Jezebel.com A new study argues that vaccinating boys against HPV isn't the best use of resources, since vaccinating more girls will actually lead to a greater reduction in overall infections. However, there are also political implications to consider. Back in October, I wrote that the rise of HPV-related throat cancer in men was an excellent argument for vaccinating boys against the virus. And later that month, the CDC extended its vaccine recommendation to include boys as well as girls. But now, researchers say that focusing on vaccinating more members of one sex may be more effective than trying to vaccinate both. In a study published in PLoS Medicine, Johannes A. Bogaards used mathematical modeling to determine which vaccination strategy would lead to the greatest reduction in HPV prevalence. They found that increasing the percentage of girls vaccinated would actually have the biggest effect. Bogaards et al write, "We show that, once routine vaccination of one sex is in place, increasing the coverage in that sex is much more effective in bolstering herd immunity than switching to a policy that includes both sexes. Universal vaccination against HPV should therefore only become an option when vaccine uptake among girls cannot be further increased. Adding boys to current vaccination programs seems premature, because female coverage rates still leave ample room for improvement in most countries that have introduced HPV vaccination. So far, only three countries have achieved a three-dose coverage of 70% or more in females." The authors do note that while [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-22T14:15:49-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Anti-cancer vaccines are emerging

Source: Boston Globe Author: Karen Weintraub Long envisioned drugs to harness the immune system could reshape treatments For more than a century, doctors and patients have dreamed of using the body’s own defenses to fight cancer. Why, they wondered, can’t the immune system - so good at tracking down and destroying intruders - attack the tumor cells that invade healthy tissue? Finally, science is catching up with this vision. Just reaching the market in a big way, so-called therapeutic vaccines turn a patient’s immune system against the cancer and help prevent a recurrence. If the early promise of these vaccines is realized, they will soon join the basic arsenal for fighting all cancers, several researchers said. “We really are in a transformative moment,’’ said Dr. Glenn Dranoff, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a medical oncologist and immunologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Prostate cancer patients were the first to benefit. A therapeutic vaccine called Provenge received federal approval last year after studies showed it safely extended the lives of advanced prostate cancer patients for an average of 4.1 months. Then came a vaccine called Yervoy, designed to attack melanoma, a particularly dangerous form of skin cancer. Cancer generally turns down the body’s immune response to a tumor; Yervoy is designed to turn it back on, enhancing the immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells. Many more cancer vaccines are under development, with hundreds of trials underway in patients with breast, prostate, lung, kidney, colon, cervical, brain, and [...]

Charlotte Parker2011-12-19T14:52:52-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Harvard doctor’s startup trains hospitals to rehab cancer survivors

Source: www.bloomberg.com/ Author: John Tozzi Sandra Wade, a Florida social worker, was diagnosed with an incurable form of breast cancer a decade ago. Two surgeries and years of chemotherapy left Wade, 61, with a damaged heart, chronic swelling in her left arm, spinal arthritis, nerve damage and fatigue, among other problems. “They didn’t send me home well,” she says. “They sent me home sicker than I began.” Survivors of strokes, heart attacks and traumatic injuries routinely get rehabilitation to improve their strength, energy and functioning. For cancer patients, it’s a rarity. It wasn’t always this way. “We used to have better cancer rehabilitation than we do now,” says Dr. Catherine Alfano, a program director at the Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute. Before the 1980s, when most cancer treatment involved long hospital stays, survivors would get rehab before being discharged. As treatments improved and outpatient care became more common, Alfano says, “those programs kind of disappeared to a large extent.” Now the medical world is recognizing that the 12 million cancer survivors in the U.S. can benefit from more comprehensive rehab. Six years ago the Institute of Medicine called for giving every survivor a “care plan” to manage the lasting consequences of treatment, and this year the American College of Surgeons made such post-treatment attention to quality of life a requirement for its 1,500 accredited hospitals. Dr. Julie Silver, a Harvard Medical School rehab physician who survived breast cancer herself, is one of the pioneers trying to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-18T12:35:12-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

A Planned Neck Dissection is Not Necessary in All Patients with N2-3 Head-and-Neck Cancer After Sequential Chemoradiotherapy

Source: DocGuide.com PURPOSE: To assess the role of a planned neck dissection (PND) after sequential chemoradiotherapy for patients with head-and-neck cancer with N2-N3 nodal disease. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We reviewed 90 patients with N2-N3 head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma treated between 1991 and 2001 on two sequential chemoradiotherapy protocols. All patients received induction and concurrent chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-fluorocuracil, with or without tirapazamine. Patients with less than a clinical complete response (cCR) in the neck proceeded to a PND after chemoradiation. The primary endpoint was nodal response. Clinical outcomes and patterns of failure were analyzed. RESULTS: The median follow-up durations for living and all patients were 8.3 years (range, 1.5-16.3 year) and 5.4 years (range, 0.6-16.3 years), respectively. Of the 48 patients with nodal cCR whose necks were observed, 5 patients had neck failures as a component of their recurrence [neck and primary (n = 2); neck, primary, and distant (n = 1); neck only (n = 1); neck and distant (n = 1)]. Therefore, PND may have benefited only 2 patients (4%) [neck only failure (n = 1); neck and distant failure (n = 1)]. The pathologic complete response (pCR) rate for those with a clinical partial response (cPR) undergoing PND (n = 30) was 53%. The 5-year neck control rates after cCR, cPR→pCR, and cPR→pPR were 90%, 93%, and 78%, respectively (p = 0.36). The 5-year disease-free survival rates for the cCR, cPR→pCR, and cPR→pPR groups were 53%, 75%, and 42%, respectively (p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: In our [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-13T10:52:02-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

‘Sicker’ Canadians struggle to obtain treatment: report

Source: CTV.ca TORONTO — Canadians with chronic conditions are frequent users of the health-care system, but a new report shows many experience considerable difficulty getting the medical treatment they need. So-called sicker Canadians -- most of whom are age 50 or older -- have one or more of seven chronic conditions: high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, joint pain or arthritis, chronic lung problems such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and mental health problems such as depression or anxiety. Those who are chronically ill are among the highest users of health services: they are more likely to be hospitalized, have surgery, visit emergency departments and take prescription medications. But cost can be a major barrier to accessing that care, says the Health Council of Canada, citing results from the 2011 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, which included almost 4,000 Canadians. Almost a quarter of respondents who rated their health as fair or poor reported skipping a dose of medication or not filling a prescription due to the cost, compared with just 10 per cent of other Canadians, the survey found. The council said that one-in-four ratio is significant because 90 per cent of sicker Canadians take at least one prescription drug, while 54 per cent take four or more medications. As well, about one in eight said they have skipped a recommended test or followup treatment due to cost concerns, compared to just five per cent of those without chronic health problems. "The experiences of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-13T10:44:42-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Quebecers waiting longer for surgery

Source: CTV.ca Canadians who needed surgeries or other treatments in 2011 had to wait longer than they have in close to two decades, says a new report from the Fraser Institute, and the average waiting time for Quebecers has grown to the longest it's been since 2003. The think-tank, which has been tracking wait times since 1993, says that the median wait time for surgery in 2011 jumped to 19 weeks, from 18.2 weeks in 2010. In Quebec the average time in 2011 grew to 19.9 weeks. The previous year patients waited 18.8 weeks, while in 2009 the average waiting time was 16.6 weeks. Despite the growth in waiting times, Quebec patients were the third quickest in the country at getting the operations they needed. The survey suggests the main reason for delays in Quebec was the time between seeing a specialist after getting a referral from a General Practitioner, which at 10.7 weeks is above the national average. The wait for second step of the process -- actually getting the operation -- had actually decreased in Quebec from 9.9 weeks to 9.2 weeks. Only in Ontario, B.C., and Manitoba were patients faster at moving into the operating room after an initial visit with a surgeon. Life-threatening cases always treated quickly Surgery is not a first-come, first-served affair. Doctors at the Jewish General Hospital say priority is always given to life-threatening cases. "There are patients walking around with hernias, for example, that are not symptomatic, that they've had for 15 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-13T10:25:29-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Meat ups cancer risk while fruit/vegetables reduce it

Source: www.foodconsumer.org Author: staff In 1976, the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, led by Senator George McGovern found that meat-based diets are responsible for more than half of total cases of cancer. In 1980, the U.S. National Cancer Institute directed the National Research Council to collect and study the literature on nutrition and cancer. It found that eating meat causes 40 percent of cancers in males and 60 percent of total cancers in women. International research institutions confirmed that the more the meat intake, the higher the risk for the cancer, particularly in the digestive system. Harvard University public health experts found 70 percent of human cancers are associated with meat consumption. U.S. National Institutes of Health studied fifty thousand vegetarians and found they had much lower risk for cancer than meat eaters. At the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center, Tim Bayer, Professor of Preventive Medicine, said fruits and vegetables are preventative against all gastrointestinal cancers and cancers induced by smoking. He also said it has been fully scientifically confirmed that eating fruits and vegetables prevents oral cancer , throat, esophagus, lung, stomach, colon and bladder cancer. Chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Research Group and University of California biologist Dr. Clifford Grobstein said: "By controlling the food we eat, the diet can prevent sensitive cancers, such as esophagus, breast, stomach, colorectal and prostate cancer." Why does a vegetarian diet prevents cancer? 1. Fruits and vegetables contain anti-cancer ingredients In 1978, the University [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-11T08:35:35-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|