Oral Cancer News – Page 256

Induction chemotherapy before concomitant chemoradiotherapy improves outcomes of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer

Source: CancerConsultants Author: Staff Researchers from Italy have reported that induction (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy prior to concomitant chemoradiotherapy improves outcomes of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. The details of this Phase II randomized trial were published early online in the Annals of Oncology on December 23, 2009.[1] There have been several randomized and non-randomized clinical trials suggesting that the concomitant administration of platinum-based chemotherapy and radiotherapy is superior to radiotherapy alone for the treatment of patients with advanced head and neck cancer for local and regional control. Most trials, but not all, have also shown a survival advantage for combined treatment. Two randomized trials in the May 7, 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine documented the effects of adding platinum-based chemotherapy to post-operative radiotherapy for the treatment of patients with advanced head and neck cancers. A recent large randomized trial performed by the UK Head and Neck (UKHAN1) trial reported that concurrent chemoradiotherapy reduces recurrences and death in patients with advanced head and neck cancer. However, researchers are still attempting to determine the optimal way to administer radiotherapy and chemotherapy to improve outcomes of patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Previous Phase II non-randomized studies have suggested benefit from neoadjuvant induction chemotherapy prior to the administration of definitive concomitant chemoradiotherapy for treatment of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. The current study involved 101 patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer who were randomly allocated to treatment with concomitant chemoradiotherapy alone or to [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-03-05T07:37:01-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New vaccine against HPV approved in Canada

Source: www.ctv.ca Author: staff Canadian women have a choice of two vaccines against HPV, the family of viruses that can cause cervical cancer, now that Health Canada has approved GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine, Cervarix. The vaccine, which is expected to be available by the end of the month, will compete against Gardasil, a product of Merck Canada, which has been on the Canadian market since 2006. Cervarix has been available in Europe since 2007, and was approved in the U.S. this past fall. Health Canada said its approval was based on a review of clinical trials on nearly 30,000 women. The competing vaccines will be similarly priced, at about $400. Each vaccine requires three doses and are meant for girls and women aged 10 to 25, ideally before they become sexually active. While there are differences between the two vaccines, each offers good protection against infection with the most dangerous strains of HPV, the Society of Gynecologic Oncology of Canada (GOC) said in a statement Tuesday. The GOC added that each vaccine has had an excellent safety profile both in pre-market testing and after extensive use worldwide. Cervarix is designed to protect against two human papillomavirus strains: HPV 16 and 18. Those strains are responsible for more than 70 per cent of cases of cervical cancer. It also offers some protection against three other cancer-causing strains HPV 31, 33 and 45. Between them, the four strains account for more than 80 per cent of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil also prevents infection with [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-11T09:55:32-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Sentinel nodes predict spread in oral cancer

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Author: Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today In early oral squamous cell carcinoma, a sentinel node biopsy correctly predicted an absence of lymphatic metastasis in all but 4% of patients, researchers said. For T1 and T2 lesions that were clinically node-negative, the procedure -- combined with additional sectioning and immunohistochemistry -- yielded a negative predictive value of 96%, according to Francisco Civantos Jr., MD, of the University of Miami, and colleagues. For T1 lesions, the value was 100%, while for T2 cancers it was 94%, the researchers reported online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The finding may position the procedure as an intermediate option between watchful waiting and selective neck dissection, the researchers said, asserting that it's now "reasonable" to conduct a head-to-head trial of sentinel node biopsy and neck dissection. The procedure has significantly increased the sensitivity for detecting lymphatic metastasis in melanoma and breast cancer patients, Civantos and colleagues noted. But in oral cancer, many surgeons prefer a completion neck dissection, they added, despite the "measurable morbidity" that's associated with the procedure. On the other hand, because of that morbidity, other specialists prefer watchful waiting and elective neck irradiation. To investigate the issue, Civantos and colleagues conducted a multicenter trial in which patients with early invasive oral cancers were treated with both procedures -- a sentinel node biopsy, followed by completion selective neck dissection. The primary goal was to see if a negative hematoxylin and eosin finding on the sentinel node biopsy accurately predicted [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-09T21:42:01-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

F.D.A. to increase medical radiation oversight

Source: nytimes.com Authors: Walt Bogdanich & Rebecca R. Ruiz The federal Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would take steps to more stringently regulate three of the most potent forms of medical radiation, including increasingly popular CT scans, some of which deliver the radiation equivalent of 400 chest X-rays. With the announcement, the F.D.A. puts its regulatory muscle behind a growing movement to make life-saving medical radiation — both diagnostic and therapeutic — safer. Last week, the leading radiation oncology association called for enhanced safety measures. And a Congressional committee was set to hear testimony Wednesday on the weak oversight of medical radiation, but the hearing was canceled because of bad weather. The F.D.A. has for weeks been investigating why more than 300 patients in four hospitals were overradiated by powerful CT scans used to detect strokes. The overdoses were first discovered last year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where patients received up to eight times as much radiation as intended. The errors occurred over 18 months and were detected only after patients lost their hair. In making the announcement, the F.D.A. said it hoped to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from three medical imaging procedures: CT scans, which provide three-dimensional images; nuclear medicine studies, in which patients are given a radioactive substance and doctors watch it move through the body; and fluoroscopies, in which a radiation-emitting device provides a continuous internal image on a monitor. “These types of imaging exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, a [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-09T21:34:45-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New DNA therapy for advanced mouth cancer

Source: www.dentistry.co.uk Author: staff A research team has been awarded a patent after developing a new DNA therapy for head and neck cancer sufferers. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the US, aims to develop a safe and effective alternative to standard chemotherapy treatments which cause debilitating side-effects. Based on a form of genetic therapy called ‘antisense', the new DNA therapy injections target the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), blocking the growth of a protein which is found on the surface of many types of cancer cells. During the initial Cancer Institute study, led by Dr Jennifer Grandis, the injections were well-tolerated, and the tumours which were being targeted by the treatment disappeared or shrank considerably in more than a quarter of the patients. The British Dental Health Foundation has welcomed the latest development in treating this deadly disease. Chief executive Dr Nigel Carter said: 'These new findings show that this new DNA therapy can have the potential as both a safe and effective advanced cancer treatment. One of the major problems with mouth cancer is that it often presents in late stages, significantly reducing survival – so a late stage treatment is particularly welcome. 'Head and neck cancers have a strong association with environmental and lifestyle risk factors including smoking tobacco, alcohol consumption and the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus (HPV). 'Research has recently suggested that the HPV virus, transmitted via oral sex, could soon become the most common cause of mouth cancer.' Cancers caused [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-07T09:42:31-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Laser and nanoparticles blow up cancer cells

Source: news.softpedia.com/ Author: Tudor Vieru In a new approach to fighting cancer cells, or cells ridden by several other types of diseases as well, researchers managed to combine the powers of lasers and nanoparticles most efficiently. The method relies on using short bursts of laser light to produce small explosions from gold particles that have been placed inside the targeted cells beforehand. The blasts, which cause no ill-effects to surrounding cells, are highly capable of dismembering the cancerous ones, acting like a “jackhammer” on their targets, and pounding relentlessly, LiveScience reports. Basically, the active elements in this therapy are nanobubbles, which form as the gold particles are subjected to intense, but short, laser pulses. The science group, which is based at the Rice University, was able to determine that the intensity of the lasers could be tuned in two ways, resulting in two different results. The end result could be either clear, bright and small bubbles, that were harmless, or larger explosions that took place inside the cell, which dismembered it. “Single-cell targeting is one of the most touted advantages of nanomedicine, and our approach delivers on that promise with a localized effect inside an individual cell. The idea is to spot and treat unhealthy cells early, before a disease progresses to the point of making people extremely ill,” says RU physicist Dmitri Lapotko. He was also the author of a new study detailing the method, which appears online, in the January 25 issue of the respected scientific journal Nanotechnology. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-07T09:35:35-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Harmless virus could be an answer to cancer

Source: www.dailyfinance.com Author: Melly Alazraki You'd think that infecting a cancer patient with a virus would be the last thing a doctor would want to do. But what if it was a virus that attacks and kills cancer cells? That's exactly the premise that led to the founding of Oncolytics Biotech, a Calgary-based biotechnology company. It's about to begin Phase 3 trials that could pave the way for a marketable cancer treatment based on this technology in two years, says CEO Dr. Brad Thompson (pictured) in an interview with DailyFinance. "We're working on a product that is widely applicable to quite a few indications of cancer and is based on a naturally occurring virus that's commonly found in the environment and that happens to have a preference of growing in cancer cells as opposed to growing in normal tissue." It's called a reovirus (short for Respiratory Enteric Orphan virus), and it's a type which most people pick up by age 12 through inhalation or contact that causes few or no health problems. But when the virus enters cancer cells, it kills them. On-Off Switch Viruses, naturally, prefer cells that can't fight them off. And these cancer cells all have a common characteristic: They have a certain growth pathway, called the Ras pathway, turned on. "If a cell doesn't have that pathway turned on, nothing happens, so it's like an on-off switch for the virus's growth," Thompson explained. In the human body, very few normal cells have that Ras pathway turned [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-06T12:11:49-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Survey: use of internet to find health information increases

Source: www.medscape.com Author: staff More than half of Americans looked up health information on the Internet last year, U.S. government researchers reported on Tuesday. But only 5% used email to communicate with their doctors, the survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found. The survey included 7,192 adults aged 18 to 64 questioned between January and June 2009. During that period, 51% "had used the Internet to look up health information during the past 12 months," the center, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement. "Among adults aged 18-64, women were more likely than men to look up health information on the Internet (58% versus 43%) and were also more likely to use online chat groups to learn about health topics (4% versus 2.5%)." The survey found 6% of adults requested a refill of a prescription on the Internet, and almost 3% had made an appointment with a healthcare provider in the previous 12 months using the Internet. Other researchers have found doctors are reluctant to use the Internet or email to communicate with patients because of concerns about privacy as well as confusion about how to charge for their time.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-06T08:54:51-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Medical group urges new rules on radiation

Source: nytimes.com Author: Walt Bogdanich The leading professional organization dedicated to radiation oncology has called for enhanced safety measures in administering medical radiation, including the establishment of the nation’s first central database for the reporting of errors involving linear accelerators — machines that generate radiation — and CT scanners. The group, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, or Astro, issued a six-point plan on Wednesday that it said would improve safety and quality and reduce the chances of medical errors. Even though the group says serious radiation accidents are rare, it says it will work toward a stronger accreditation program, expanded training, and an enhanced program to ensure that medical technologies from different manufacturers can safely transfer information. Astro will also press for federal legislation to require national standards for radiation therapy treatment teams, along with additional resources for the Radiological Physics Center, a federally financed group that evaluates the safety of treatments. Dr. Anthony L. Zietman, professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School and Astro’s president, said the goal was to “take measures that are currently in existence, recognize them and then work to strengthen them and above all work to reassure patients.” The group said it began a comprehensive review of existing policies last week after two articles in The New York Times reported on the harm that can result when powerful and technologically complex machines go awry and when basic safety procedures are not followed. The articles reported that medical personnel who work with the new [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-05T22:29:56-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

HPV-associated base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma incidence increasing in Sweden

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: staff The incidence for base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma increased significantly in Sweden between 1998 and 2007, and by 2007, more than 80% of these cases were HPV-positive. Various studies during the past 20 years have indicated that HPV is a risk factor for oropharyngeal cancer. However, few studies have assessed the specific sub-sites of the oropharynx. In this study, researchers assessed the increased incidence of base of tongue cancer and the association of HPV in 109 patients diagnosed with base of tongue cancer between 1998 and 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden. The researchers obtained diagnostic pretreatment paraffin-embedded tumor biopsies from 95 patients. DNA samples were obtained from 30-mcm paraffin-embedded base of tongue biopsy slices. Age at diagnosis ranged from 41 to 85 years. From 1970 to 2007, the age-standardized incidence of base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma increased from 0.15 per 100,000 person-years between 1970 and 1974 to 0.47 per 100,000 person-years between 2005 and 2007. HPV DNA was found in 75% of base of tongue cancer cases during this time. Of the HPV-positive tumors, 86% were HPV-16–positive and seven were HPV-33–positive. During the study period, the incidence of HPV-positive base of tongue cancers persistently increased (see chart). A significant increase was found in the proportion of HPV-positive cancer between 1998 and 2001 compared with 2004 and 2007 (58% vs. 84%; P<.05). When compared with patients with HPV-negative tumors, patients with HPV-positive tumors were likely to be stage IV (P<.02) and had less advanced T-stage (P<.05 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-05T22:20:41-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|