Oral Cancer News

Your mouth can tell a lot about your health

Source: www.sfgate.com Author: Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post Your mouth can tell you a lot about your overall health. Troubled teeth and gums aren't always just a dental problem. Sometimes they indicate deeper issues, and dentists are increasingly picking up the clues. "We look around the mouth and we look for color changes. We're looking for certain smells. Spots around the gums," said Washington dentist Joseph Kravitz. The relation of oral health to the rest of the body has received increased attention in recent years, spurred by such experts as Richard Carmona, who as surgeon general urged policymakers in 2003 to "increase the understanding of how the signs and symptoms of oral infections can indicate general health status and act as a marker for other diseases." The publicity reminded a lot of dentists that their jobs weren't just about root canals and fillings, Kravitz said. Here are some conditions the possible clues dentists may be able to identify: Heart disease. Gums that have turned a "bright beefy red" or purple. Type 2 diabetes. Gums that bleed at the slightest touch although there is no plaque evident. Kidney disease. A sweet ammonia smell on a person's breath. Acid reflux. Teeth that look worn and pitted, as if they'd been "dipped in battery acid." Oral cancer. Gum tissues with white spots that last two weeks or more. Leukemia. Fiery-red swollen gums that just won't heal. Osteoporosis. Black spots on tooth X-rays that indicate air pockets and dead bone. Stress. Gums that have pulled [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-10T06:25:10-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

The fog that follows chemotherapy

Source: nytimes.com Author: Jane E. Brody As more people with cancer survive and try to return to their former lives, a side effect of chemotherapy is getting more and more attention. Its name is apt, if unappealing: chemo brain. Nearly every chemotherapy patient experiences short-term problems with memory and concentration. But about 15 percent suffer prolonged effects of what is known medically as chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment. The symptoms are remarkably consistent: a mental fogginess that may include problems with memory, word retrieval, concentration, processing numbers, following instructions, multitasking and setting priorities. In those affected — and doctors at this point have no way of predicting who might be — it is as if the cognitive portion of the brain were barely functioning. Symptoms are most apparent to high-functioning individuals used to juggling the demands of complex jobs or demanding home lives, or both. The chemo brain phenomenon was described two years ago in The New York Times by Jane Gross, who noted that after years of medical denial, “there is now widespread acknowledgment that patients with cognitive symptoms are not imagining things.” Some therapists have attributed the symptoms of chemo brain to anxiety, depression, stress, fatigue and fear rather than direct effects of chemotherapy on the brain and hormone balance. Yet when such factors dissipate, the symptoms may not. Recent studies that took other influences into account and analyzed how patients’ brains worked before and after cancer treatment have shown that cognitive effects of chemotherapy are real and, for some, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-09T20:01:23-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Moderate lifetime marijuana use associated with reduced risk of head and neck cancer, study says

Source: www.enewspf.com Author: staff The moderate long-term use of marijuana is associated with a reduced risk of head and neck cancers, according to the results of a population-based case-control study published online by the journal Cancer Prevention Research. Investigators at Rhode Island's Brown University, along with researchers at Boston University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Minnesota assessed the lifetime marijuana use habits of 434 cases (patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma from nine medical facilities) compared to 547 matched controls. Authors reported, "After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma ... [as was] moderate weekly use." Subjects who smoked marijuana and consumed alcohol and tobacco (two known high risk factors for head and neck cancers) also experienced a reduced risk of cancer, the study found. "Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC," investigators concluded. "This association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use). ... Further, we observed that marijuana use modified the interaction between alcohol and cigarette smoking, resulting in a decreased HNSCC risk among moderate smokers and light drinkers, and attenuated risk among the heaviest smokers and drinkers. ... Despite our results being consistent with the point estimates from other studies, there remains a need for this inverse association to be confirmed by further work, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-26T09:02:33-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Medical brief: shutting down oral cancer

Source: www.bu.edu/today Author: Caleb Daniloff Maria Kukuruzinska, a professor and researcher at BU’s Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, has shown a direct relationship between the aberrant behavior of a gene known as DPAGT1 and the loss of adhesion between cells in oral cancer cell lines and oral tumor tissues, offering dramatic new insight into how the disease might be treated. Oral cancer, which affects the mouth and throat, can spread quickly and has a 50 percent survival rate beyond five years. In healthy epithelial tissues, which line body cavities and form many organs, cells are held together with the help of an adhesion receptor called E-cadherin. This molecule ensures proper cell shape and function and prevents tumor spread. In oral cancer, the DPAGT1 gene is overactive, which interferes with E-cadherin’s adhesive properties. Tumors spread when cells can’t stick to one another. “Such discohesive cells peel off the tumor and establish new tumor islands,” Kukuruzinska says. “The hallmark of malignancy is when cells break apart, migrate, and nest in inappropriate organs.” When researchers partially suppressed DPAGT1 in the oral cancer cell lines, they enhanced the E-cadherin molecule’s ability to form junctions between cells. The team’s findings suggest that diminishing DPAGT1’s activity could interrupt the growth of a tumor. “You can’t jump to the conclusion that you can stop cancer from developing,” Kukuruzinska says. “But we can perhaps stop tumors from spreading.” Researchers want to find the cause of overexpression of DPAGT1 in oral cancer. They hope to identify key [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-06T06:34:29-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Could bacteria be a throat-cancer culprit?

Source: www.forbes.com Author: Matthew Herper Could having the wrong bacteria in your throat give you cancer? That's the question raised by a new study by researchers at New York University Langone Medical Center. They found that people who have either chronic heartburn or a more serious, precancerous condition called Barrett's esophagus had completely different kinds of microbes living in their throats than those who were healthy. The research was published in the current issue of the medical journal Gastroenterology. "This is the type of thing that one hopes more people will do," says Jonathan Eisen, a professor at the UC-Davis Genome Center who was not involved in the work. He cautions that it is "way too early" to say that the bacteria are causing disease. "All they have right now is a correlation." The NYU researchers sequenced bacteria DNA samples from the throats of 12 healthy people, 12 with gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and 10 with Barrett's. In the healthy people, 82% of throat bacteria were Streptococcus. In those with esophageal disease, the bacteria in the throat were more like those in the stomach; only a quarter of them were Strep. Scientists divide bacteria into so-called "gram positive" varieties like Strep, which lack rigid cell walls and can be stained with dye, and "gram negative" ones that have cell walls and aren't dyeable. The throats of the people with GERD and Barrett's were full of gram negatives. This opens up several possibilities, says Zhiheng Pei, the paper's lead author. The [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-06T05:56:11-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Reference gene selection for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma gene expression studies

Source: 7thspace.com Author: Benjamin Lallemant et al. It is no longer adequate to choose reference genes blindly. We present the first study that defines the suitability of 12 housekeeping genes commonly used in cancer studies (ACT, ALAS, B2M, GAPDH, HMBS, HPRT, KALPHA, RPS18, RPL27, RPS29 , SHAD and TBP) for the normalization of quantitative expression data in the field of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Results: Raw expression levels were measured by RT-qPCR in HNSCC and normal matched mucosa of 46 patients. We analyzed the expression stabilities using geNorm and NormFinder and compared the expression levels between subgroups. In HNSCC and/or normal mucosa, the four best normalization genes were ALAS, GAPDH, RPS18 and SHAD and the most stable combination of two genes was GAPDH-SHAD. We recommend using KALPHA-TBP for the study of T1-T2 tumors, RPL27-SHAD for T3-T4 tumors, KALPHA-SHAD for N0 tumors, and ALAS-TBP for N+ tumors. ACT, B2M, GAPDH, HMBS, HPRT, KALPHA, RPS18, RPS29 and TBP were slightly misregulated (<1.7-fold) between tumor and normal mucosa but can be used for normalization, depending on the resolution required for the assay. Conclusions: In the field of HNSCC, this study will guide researchers in selecting the most appropriate reference genes from among 12 potentially suitable housekeeping genes, depending on the specific setting of their experiments. Authors: Benjamin Lallemant, Alexandre Evrard, Christophe Combescure, Heliette Chapuis, Guillaume Chambon, Caroline Raynal, Christophe Reynaud, Omar Sabra, Dominique Joubert, Frederic Hollande, Jean-Gabriel Lallemant, Serge Lumbroso, Jean-Paul Brouillet

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-05T04:54:33-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Packing a heavier warning

Source: www.washingtonpost.com Author: Ranit Mishori Coming soon to the lives of American smokers: cigarette labels that go far beyond a simple warning. Imagine gruesome color photographs showing a mouth riddled with cancer, lungs blackened, a foot rotten with gangrene. If the images sound sickening, well, that's the point. Under a law signed by President Obama on June 22 -- the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act -- tobacco companies will be required to cover 50 percent of the front and rear panels of cigarette packages with color graphics showing what happens when you smoke and bold, specific labels saying such things as: "WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease." "WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children." "WARNING: Smoking can kill you." The first U.S.-mandated label in 1965 tentatively suggested "Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health." Although the language changed over time, critics have long dismissed U.S. labeling as anemic and ineffective. Indeed, the inspiration for the new labeling standards comes from abroad. Canada started the trend in 2000 with a label that showed a picture of mouth cancer. "It's the one that smokers remember more than anything else. Even after nine years," says David Hammond, a researcher from the Department of Health Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Since then, he says, more than two dozen countries have picked up on the idea. A sampling of how explicit the labels can be: Malaysia's cigarette packs bear a photo of a diseased lung; some in Brazil show [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-05T04:48:03-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Viral infection may explain racial differences in oral cancer death rates

Source: nytimes.com Author: Roni Caryn Rabin African-American patients with head and neck cancers die earlier than whites, and researchers say they have made a breakthrough in understanding the underlying reasons for the racial gap. After scientists at the University of Maryland noticed that whites treated at their hospital for squamous cell head and neck cancers lived more than twice as long as black patients who received the same care at their hospital, they took a closer look. Further analysis revealed that the gap was almost entirely due to differences in survival among patients with cancer of the throat and tonsils, or oropharyngeal cancer. The scientists were also involved in analyzing specimens of head and neck tumors taken from participants in a treatment trial called the TAX 324 study, to see how many tumors were linked to the human papillomavirus, the same HPV-16 virus that has been linked to cervical cancer. The results were striking: they found that patients whose tumors were HPV-positive did much better after treatment than patients who were negative for the virus. Yet while half of the throat cancer patients had HPV-positive tumors, 98 percent of the positive tumors were from white patients, while a vast majority of black patients had HPV-negative tumors. “There was no difference in the survival between black and white patients in the TAX 324 trials, if you subtracted out the HPV-positive patients,” said Dr. Kevin Cullen, the senior author of a paper published online by the journal Cancer Prevention Research. White patients [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-01T14:24:03-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Mouth cancer from HPV virus reaches all-time high

Source: www.digitaljournal.com Author: staff The British Dental Health Foundation is insisting that the government include boys among the recipients of the HPV vaccinations. The foundation cites the record high in mouth cancer, affecting more men than women. Mouth cancer is at an all-time high in the United Kingdom, and one of the likeliest culprits for the dangerous surge is the sexually-transmitted HPV virus. Additionally, mouth cancer affects more men than women - and these statistics are driving the British Dental Health Foundation to question the UK government on including boys among the recipients of the HPV vaccination that is currently administered only to girls. "The cancer virus is transmitted through oral sex, and is thought to contribute to the doubling of mouth cancers." Dentistry Magazine reported on Friday. HPV is the most common sexually-transmitted virus - and one of the most dangerous, as it exists in its hosts without symptoms for years, and many strains of HPV progress into full-blown cancers of the cervix, mouth, anus, vagina, and penis. The British Dental Health Foundation is responding to a large-scale study of 46,000 mouth cancer cases in the United States. The study found that the number of deaths from sexually-transmitted HPV virus has increased by 33 percent over the past 30 years - and is now at its highest point. "It is admirable that the government is taking such positive steps to reduce the number of cervical cancer cases for the women of the future but, with mouth cancer killing more [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-01T14:18:34-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Oral sex cause of throat cancer rise

Source: webmd.com Author: Salynn Boyles Changing sexual practices have led to a dramatic rise in throat cancer in the United States over the past two decades, and experts say they fear an epidemic of the disease. The comments were made Wednesday at a news conference held by the American Association for Cancer Research to discuss research into the role of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus ( HPV) in head and neck cancer. Increasing rates of HPV infection, spread through oral sex, is largely driving the rapid rise in oropharyngeal cancers, which include tumors of the throat, tonsils, and base of the tongue, said Scott Lippman, MD, who chairs the thoracic department at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Studies of oropharyngeal tumor tissue stored 20 years ago show that only around 20% are HPV positive, Lippman said. Today it is estimated that 60% of patients are infected with the virus. “The percentage of oropharyngeal cancers that are HPV positive is much higher now than it was 20 years ago,” he said. “This is a real trend, and that is why there is concern of an epidemic given that fact that oropharyngeal cancer is increasing at an alarming rate.” Changing Face of Throat Cancer Smoking and alcohol abuse were once considered the only major risk factors for these cancers, but this is no longer the case. American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD, said as many as half of the oropharyngeal cancers diagnosed today appear to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-07-30T19:16:32-07:00July, 2009|Oral Cancer News|