Oral Cancer News – Page 222

HPV causing “slow epidemic” of oral cancers

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Janis C. Kelly Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and might account for the steady increase in OSCC incidence, even in subjects who do not smoke or consume alcohol, according to Swedish researchers. A review of recent studies, conducted by Trobjorn Ramqvist, MD, and Tina Dalianis, MD, PhD, and published online October 13 in Emerging Infectious Diseases, suggests that changes in sexual practices are behind the surge in OSCC cases linked to sexually transmitted HPV. The key factors appear to be multiple sex partners, starting sexual activity at a younger age, and increased oral sex. The data are startling. For example, from 1970 to 2002, tonsillar cancer (which is the most common OSCC) increased in Stockholm, Sweden, by 2.8-fold, and by 2006/07, 93% of all tonsillar cancers in that city were HPV-positive. Dr. Dalianis, who is professor of tumor virology and the head of the Department of Oncology–Pathology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told Medscape Medical News that "we realized that there was an increase in HPV-induced tonsillar cancer, but we did not realize it was so eminent until we separated the 2 groups (HPV-negative and -positive tonsillar cancer cases) the way we did." The most common OSCC is tonsillar cancer, followed by base of tongue cancer. Overall 5-year survival for OSCC is about 25%, and HPV-positive OSCC generally has better clinical outcomes than HPV-negative disease. Dr. Dalianis said that HPV (most commonly type 16) was found in 45% to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-26T08:52:15-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Plant stem cells pave way for low-cost cancer drug

Source: sify.com Author: saff A new study has suggested that a well-known cancer drug could be produced cheaply and sustainably using stem cells derived from trees. University of Edinburgh researchers have isolated and grown stem cells from a yew tree whose bark is a natural source of the anticancer compound paclitaxel. The development could enable the compound to be produced on a commercial scale at low cost, with no harmful by-products. Scientists and engineers behind the development say the drug treatment - currently used on lung, ovarian, breast, head and neck cancer - could become cheaper and more widely available. Currently, an extract from yew tree bark is used to industrially manufacture the compound paclitaxel. However, this process is expensive, requires supplies of mature trees, and creates environmentally damaging by-products. Researchers claim that using stem cells-self-renewing tree cells which can be manipulated to produce large amounts of the active compound-would effectively create an abundant supply of the drug. Scientists behind the project have also cultured stem cells from other plants with medical applications, indicating that the technique could be used to manufacture other important pharmaceuticals besides paclitaxel. The study was published in Nature Biotechnology.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-26T08:33:51-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

LED Dental Announces Sponsorship of Academy of General Dentistry

Sponsorship Will Focus on Oral Cancer Screening Using VELscope Technology LED Dental announced today a corporate sponsorship agreement with the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), a professional association of more than 35,000 general dentists who are dedicated to professional excellence through the pursuit of continuing education (CE). This sponsorship from the maker of the VELscope Enhanced Oral Assessment system will provide AGD member dentists with a wide range of CE opportunities that focus on oral cancer and other oral disease screening topics through the end of 2011. According to Peter Whitehead, LED Dental founder and CEO, “We are proud to be associated with the AGD, whose members are to be commended for their ongoing commitment to providing the best oral health care possible to their parents.” He noted that oral cancer takes the life of one North American every hour of every day, and that dental practices are the first line of defense in detecting oral cancer and other oral disease in early stages. “Early detection can be the difference between life and death,” said Mr. Whitehead. “Dentists who regularly combine conventional oral cancer exams, involving visual inspection and palpation, with the two-minute VELscope exam greatly increase their odds of catching the disease in early and even pre-cancerous stages.” “The AGD is delighted to forge this partnership with LED Dental to increase our members’ knowledge of oral cancer, oral cancer research, and oral cancer screening techniques,” said AGD President Fares Elias, DDS, JD, FAGD. “With new cases of oral cancer [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-24T11:08:04-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

PMI Labs lowers price of oral cancer brush biopsy test

Source: www.marketwire.com/ Author: press release PMI Labs is excited to announce that the price of OralAdvance™, the Company's innovative test designed to detect early stage oral cancer, is lowered by 35% as a result of the completion of the next generation quantitative cytology analysis platform, ClearCyte™. The redesigned and reengineered ClearCyte™ platform allows for faster processing time, increased scalability and improved overall performance. The per-slide scanning time of the machine has been reduced by more than 65% delivering a yearly scanning capacity of over 40,000 samples per device. PMI Labs is thrilled to pass on the savings to our customers in our ongoing effort to raise awareness for oral cancer screening. "With the increase of oral cancer cases among young adults, we hope that this initiative will provide more accessibility of OralAdvance™ to all Canadians; thus allowing health professionals to detect oral cancer in its early stages and provide care for a better chance of survival. Oral cancer screening should become a standard practice in dental offices nation-wide to save lives through early detection. We believe that our products, along with our oral cancer awareness campaign, SaveTheFace.org, will help achieve these goals," comments Dr. Bojana Turic, PMI Labs - President and CEO. OralAdvance™ is used by dentists to assess the cancerous potential of suspicious lesions in the oral cavity. Cells are collected from areas that look like they may be pre-cancer using OralAdvance™'s easy-to-use brush. These cells are then assessed at PMI Labs' Vancouver laboratory to determine whether they have [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-24T11:00:10-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Nicotine-delivering e-cigarettes under fire

Source: Courier Journal By: Patrick Howington Sean Howard smoked cigarettes for 14 years until he found something new — an electronic cigarette that delivers the nicotine he craves but not the deadly toxins from cigarette smoke. Now Howard, 28, of Lexington, said he breathes better, can exercise again, and “I don’t smell like a cigarette.” A server at a local country club, Howard said he has gone back and tried cigarettes a couple of times in the year since he quit them, “and now I can’t stand the things. … I actually don’t know how I smoked them.” Howard is among the growing number of advocates of e-cigarettes — plastic or metal tubes that contain a nicotine solution but no tobacco. A battery heats the liquid into a vapor for inhaling. Sold under names like “Health E-Cigarettes” and “SmokeAnywhere” that suggest harmlessness and the ability to evade indoor smoking bans, e-cigarettes don’t require matches and don’t emit toxic smoke — but they’ve still drawn plenty of fire. In court filings and enforcement actions, federal regulators and some states have lined up with medical organizations who say e-cigarettes’ safety hasn’t been proved. While their sale is legal in most of the U.S., including Kentucky and Indiana, several states have banned e-cigarettes or are considering it. (They are not covered under Louisville and Lexington’s indoor smoking bans, though, and there are no current plans to add them.) Advocates of the product, and some medical experts, say the devices could save thousands of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-22T14:28:38-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Causing “Slow Epidemic” of Oral Cancers

Source: Medscape Today By: Janis C. Kelly October 21, 2010 — Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a risk factor for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), and might account for the steady increase in OSCC incidence, even in subjects who do not smoke or consume alcohol, according to Swedish researchers. A review of recent studies, conducted by Trobjorn Ramqvist, MD, and Tina Dalianis, MD, PhD, and published online October 13 in Emerging Infectious Diseases, suggests that changes in sexual practices are behind the surge in OSCC cases linked to sexually transmitted HPV. The key factors appear to be multiple sex partners, starting sexual activity at a younger age, and increased oral sex. The data are startling. For example, from 1970 to 2002, tonsillar cancer (which is the most common OSCC) increased in Stockholm, Sweden, by 2.8-fold, and by 2006/07, 93% of all tonsillar cancers in that city were HPV-positive. Dr. Dalianis, who is professor of tumor virology and the head of the Department of Oncology–Pathology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, told Medscape Medical News that "we realized that there was an increase in HPV-induced tonsillar cancer, but we did not realize it was so eminent until we separated the 2 groups (HPV-negative and -positive tonsillar cancer cases) the way we did." The most common OSCC is tonsillar cancer, followed by base of tongue cancer. Overall 5-year survival for OSCC is about 25%, and HPV-positive OSCC generally has better clinical outcomes than HPV-negative disease. Dr. Dalianis said that HPV (most commonly type 16) [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-22T11:17:11-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Penthouse Founder Bob Guccione Dead at 79

Source: ThirdAge News Penthouse founder Bob Guccione died on Wednesday in Texas after a long bout with lung cancer, his family said. He was 79 years old. Guccione also suffered from oral cancer, the Oral Cancer Foundation says. “My cancer was only a tiny tumor about the size of an almond at the base of my tongue,” he explained in an intervie with New York Magazine. “The cure is probably every bit as bad as the disease. It’s affected my ability to swallow . . . the mobility of my tongue . . . it makes it very difficult for me to talk...” The Wall Street Journal reported his family said in a statement Guccione died at Plano Specialty Hospital in Plano. Guccione created Penthouse in 1965, immediately setting it apart from Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine through its more graphic photos of unclothed women and less reliance on the written word. If Playboy was the publishing world's version of the Beatles, Penthouse was the Rolling Stones. "Unlike his future arch-rival Hugh Hefner, he did not suffer from sexual shyness and repression," John Heidenry, a former Penthouse Forum editor wrote in his book "What Wild Ecstasy." "He liked girls, pure and simple, like any average healthy Italian boy from New Jersey, and he was no virgin." Guccione diversified into other magazines, movies and other ventures and his fortune at one time was estimated at $400 million but Penthouse's popularity waned with the advent of Internet pornography.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-22T08:48:47-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

The Major Component In Tumeric Enhances The Effect Of Chemotherapy In Suppressing Head And Neck Cancers

Curcumin, the major component in the spice turmeric, when combined with the drug Cisplatin enhances the chemotherapy's suppression of head and neck cancer cell growth, researchers with UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center have found. A naturally occurring spice widely used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking, Turmeric has long been known to have medicinal properties, attributed to its anti-inflammatory effects. Previous studies have shown it can suppress the growth of certain cancers, said Dr. Marilene Wang, a professor of head and neck surgery, lead author of the study and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher. "Head and neck cancers, particularly cases diagnosed in a later stage, are terrible cancers that often require very radical surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation," Wang said. "They often don't present until late, and the structures in the head and neck are so vital that our treatments often cause disfigurement and severe loss of function. So using non-toxic curcumin as a treatment was a very appealing idea." The study, done in cells in Petri dishes and then in mouse models, appears in the October issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. In India, women for years have been using turmeric for medicinal purposes, as an anti-aging agent rubbed into their skin, to treat cramps during menstruation, as a poultice on the skin to promote wound healing and as an additive in cosmetics, said scientist Eri Srivatsan, an adjunct professor of surgery and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher who, along with Wang, has been studying curcumin and its [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-21T15:06:19-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

On the Call: Altria Group CEO Michael Szymanczyk

Source: Business Week Richmond, VA Like other tobacco companies, Altria Group Inc. is focusing on cigarette alternatives such as cigars, snuff and chewing tobacco for sales growth as tax increases, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma make the cigarette business tougher. The smokeless tobacco category is growing at about 7 percent a year, but still remains small compared with cigarettes. The parent company of the nation's biggest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, said Wednesday that volumes for its smokeless tobacco segment, which includes Copenhagen and Skoal, as well as Marlboro Snus, grew 16.4 percent in the third quarter and revenues excluding excise taxes increased about 11 percent to $363 million. In a conference call with analysts regarding Altria's third-quarter earnings, CEO Michael E. Szymanczyk talked about the company working with retailers to better align their shelf space with changes in the tobacco industry. QUESTION: Is the investment to help retailers reallocate their space and improve their display units for smokeless products meaningful to call out? RESPONSE: This is a category that has grown pretty substantially here over the last few years, but in retail stores, there hasn't been any significant movement in the space. At the same time, the cigarette category has declined in volume. And while inventories have come down in the cigarette business, the actual physical space devoted to cigarettes hasn't meaningfully changed. There's a good opportunity to play catch-up here. ... We're helping retailers redistribute their space so it's more consistent with their sales, and that [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-21T12:27:20-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Turmeric makes chemo more effective

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com Author: staff Researchers with UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center have found that curcumin, the major component in the spice turmeric, when combined with the drug Cisplatin enhances the chemotherapy's suppression of head and neck cancer cell growth. In India, women for years have been using turmeric for medicinal purposes, as an anti-aging agent rubbed into their skin, to treat cramps during menstruation, as a poultice on the skin to promote wound healing and as an additive in cosmetics, said scientist Eri Srivatsan, an adjunct professor of surgery and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher. Srivatsan, along with Dr. Marilene Wang, a professor of head and neck surgery, lead author of the study and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, has been studying curcumin and its anti-cancer properties for six years. A 2005 study by Wang and Srivatsan first showed that curcumin suppressed the growth of head and neck cancer cells, first in cells and then in mouse models. In the animal studies, the curcumin was applied directly onto the tumours in paste form because it did not dissolve in saline, which would have allowed it to be injected. In need of a better way to deliver the curcumin, the team collaborated with Dr. Kapil Mehta of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and found that encapsulating the curcumin in a liposome, an artificially prepared vehicle that enclosed the spice component within its membrane, made the treatment injectable. The curcumin was injected into the tail vein of a mouse, where it circulated into the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-20T08:54:24-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|