Oral Cancer News – Page 214 – The Oral Cancer Foundation News Archive

House GOP targets tobacco programs

Source: www.desmoinesregister.com Author: Tony Leys Iowans no longer would face gruesome photos of mouth cancer or TV portrayals of smarmy cigarette salesmen if House Republicans get their way. GOP leaders want to end to the "Just Eliminate Lies" program, which sponsors graphic anti-tobacco ads and organizes youth conferences to battle smoking. Linda Upmeyer, a Garner Republican set to become majority leader, said Just Eliminate Lies often spends money on superfluous activities, such as merchandise giveaways. "If we're going to do smoking cessation, I don't think Iowans want to buy backpacks and T-shirts," she said. House Republicans proposed junking the program this week as part of a large package of budget cuts. They also proposed ending a program called Quitline Iowa, which provides telephone counseling to people who want to quit smoking. Upmeyer said she'd heard that callers often did not get prompt responses from the contractor that runs Quitline. "These are ineffective programs," she said, and they should not be a priority in a tight budget year. Organizers denied the allegation. Cathy Callaway, who is chairwoman of the Iowa Tobacco Prevention and Control Commission, said she hadn't heard of major problems with Quitline Iowa. She also noted that the percentage of Iowa high-schoolers who smoke regularly dropped to 20 percent in 2008 from 31 percent in 2000, when Just Eliminate Lies started. She said she believes the program was targeted because of its controversial ads. A 2008 analysis of the program showed that teen smoking had declined, but it also [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-05T09:36:07-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Health and philanthropy—the tobacco connection

Source: www.thelancet.com Author: Simon Chapman On June 14, the world's two richest men, Mexico's Carlos Slim Helú and the USA's Bill Gates, jointly announced that they would each contribute US$50 million to the Latam health project to increase vaccinations and improve child nutrition and natal health in central America.1 Slim already contributes reputedly $2·5 billion annually to his Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud, which runs a large variety of health programmes in Latin America.2 The latest announcement will naturally attract widespread acclaim as an outstanding example of philanthropy. But it also invites important questions about consistency and competing interests. Any assessment of Slim's net contribution to public health must balance the impact of his philanthropic contributions as well as the indirect health consequences that flow from his wealth generation with a less appreciated source of his wealth. Descriptions of Slim's vast fortune generally concentrate on his telecommunications empire.3 Relatively little is mentioned about his long-standing majority ownership of the Mexican tobacco company Cigatam,3 which has since 2007 been 80% owned by Philip Morris.4 Slim's website acknowledges that Cigatam “turned out to be the first and most important because of its cash flow, providing the Group with sufficient liquidity to capitalize on available opportunities and thereby increase its acquisitions of big companies”.5 Nor is it as widely publicised that he has a continuing role as a non-executive director6 of the world's largest tobacco company, Philip Morris International (PMI). The company's shareholders doubtless expect him—like all directors—to make a major contribution [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-05T09:31:57-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Quitting smoking makes economic sense

Source: www.latimes.com Author: Francesca Lunzer Kritz What does it cost to stop smoking? For just about anyone, less than it does to keep smoking. Many smokers burn through thousands of dollars each year buying cigarettes alone. Then there are peripheral costs like breath mints, extra trips to the dry cleaner and higher premiums for health insurance. Quitting costs money too, but it's a better long-term investment. Plus, much of what you'll need to get started — nicotine gum, patches and even counseling sessions — is often available free. "The cost of quitting isn't typically the reason smokers give for not giving up the habit," says Dr. Cheryl Healton, president of the American Legacy Foundation, a smoking cessation advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. "But finding out that it can be a very manageable cost is good news for smokers who make the decision to stop." Nationwide, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes (including the federal cigarette tax and state sales taxes) is about $5.51, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington, D.C. For those who smoke a pack a day, that works out to about $155 a month, or just over $2,000 a year. Quitting, on the other hand, generally costs $25 to $150 a month, according to Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. One-on-one counseling may add to the tab, he said. Smokers may need to make several attempts before they kick the habit for good, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-04T20:24:18-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

A cancer vaccine is born

Source: www.rochester.edu Author: Corydon Ireland Room 3-5135 at the Medical Center looks like a hundred other cubbyholes of basic science. A gray metal door decorated with the obligatory cartoon leads into a space the size of a motel room. White lab coats drape on wire hangers. Plain shelves, a desk, and a computer surround a breast-high bench arrayed with instrumentation. The paint scheme: early dorm room. “The posters are to cover the holes in the walls,” jokes William Bonnez, an associate professor of medicine and a veteran researcher who says not much has changed inside the room in a quarter century. But this is no ordinary workspace, and some day it may merit a plaque. Here, starting more than two decades ago, Bonnez and University colleagues Richard Reichman, a professor of medicine, and Robert Rose ’94M (PhD), an associate professor of medicine, developed the key technology behind two vaccines that may eliminate cervical cancer, a disease that each year kills 250,000 women internationally, including 4,500 Americans. One vaccine using the Rochester technology is Gardasil, developed by pharmaceutical giant Merck, that’s expected to be on the market some time this year. Another candidate is Cervarix, developed by GlaxoSmithKline, that could be ready by 2008. Gardasil “is a phenomenal breakthrough,” Gloria A. Bachmann told Newsday last fall when results of the final trial for the vaccine were released. She’s director of the Women’s Health Institute at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey and was not involved with the Rochester [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-04T20:18:41-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

J&J helps develop blood test to spot 1 cancer cell in a billion healthy ones

Source: www.therapeuticsdaily.com Author: staff A blood test so sensitive that it can spot a single cancer cell lurking among a billion healthy ones is moving one step closer to being available at your doctor's office. Boston scientists who invented the test and health care giant Johnson & Johnson will announce Monday that they are joining forces to bring it to market. Four big cancer centres also will start studies using the experimental test this year. Stray cancer cells in the blood mean that a tumour has spread or is likely to, many doctors believe. A test that can capture such cells has the potential to transform care for many types of cancer, especially breast, prostate, colon and lung. Initially, doctors want to use the test to try to predict what treatments would be best for each patient's tumour and find out quickly if they are working. ``This is like a liquid biopsy'' that avoids painful tissue sampling and may give a better way to monitor patients than periodic imaging scans, said Dr. Daniel Haber, chief of Massachusetts General Hospital's cancer centre and one of the test's inventors. Ultimately, the test may offer a way to screen for cancer besides the mammograms, colonoscopies and other less-than-ideal methods used now. ``There's a lot of potential here, and that's why there's a lot of excitement,'' said Dr. Mark Kris, lung cancer chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He had no role in developing the test, but Sloan-Kettering is one of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-04T09:56:14-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cost of living and the late effects after cancer treatments

Source: Cure Today Author: Kathy Latour Cancer patients are living longer, but if radiation was part of their treatment, late effects may be a problem. Sam LaMonte, MD, knew he had cancer as soon as he touched the lump in his neck. It was 1991, and LaMonte, a head and neck surgeon in Pensacola, Florida, had just stepped down as the president of the Florida division of the American Cancer Society (ACS). “I told my partners I thought it was cancer, and they were in complete denial,” he recalls. “I wasn’t, because I had been feeling cancer in people’s necks my whole life.” LaMonte was right. A biopsy revealed cancer; the primary site was found at the base of his tongue. The diagnosis: stage 3 squamous cell head and neck cancer. The treatment: radiation twice a day for eight weeks. LaMonte, 50, resumed his career three months after he finished treatment. He picked up where he left off with the ACS, joining the national board and becoming the ACS poster boy for survivor issues even after he retired in 2002. Then in 2004, his doctor discovered from an X-ray that LaMonte’s left carotid artery was 100 percent blocked, and the right was 60 percent blocked. The damage, his doctor said, was the result of radiation that had saved his life 15 years earlier. LaMonte was a stroke waiting to happen. He had never had a symptom. “I was dumb as a door,” LaMonte says in retrospect. “So was my radiation oncologist [...]

Charlotte Parker2011-01-07T11:39:07-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Second primary cancers after an index head & neck cancer: subsite-specific trends in the era of hpv–associated oropharyngeal cancer

Source: American Society of Clinical Oncology Authors: Luc G.T. Morris, Andrew G. Sikora, Snehal G. Patel, Richard B. Hayes and Ian Ganly Abstract Purpose Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are at elevated risk of second primary malignancies (SPM), most commonly of the head and neck (HN), lung, and esophagus. Our objectives were to identify HNSCC subsite-specific differences in SPM risk and distribution and to describe trends in risk over 3 decades, before and during the era of human papillomavirus (HPV) –associated oropharyngeal SCC. Methods Population-based cohort study of 75,087 patients with HNSCC in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. SPM risk was quantified by using standardized incidence ratios (SIRs), excess absolute risk (EAR) per 10,000 person-years at risk (PYR), and number needed to observe. Trends in SPM risk were analyzed by using joinpoint log-linear regression. Results In patients with HNSCC, the SIR of second primary solid tumor was 2.2 (95% CI, 2.1 to 2.2), and the EAR was 167.7 cancers per 10,000 PYR. The risk of SPM was highest for hypopharyngeal SCC (SIR, 3.5; EAR, 307.1 per 10,000 PYR) and lowest for laryngeal SCC (SIR, 1.9; EAR, 147.8 per 10,000 PYR). The most common SPM site for patients with oral cavity and oropharynx SCC was HN; for patients with laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer, it was the lung. Since 1991, SPM risk has decreased significantly among patients with oropharyngeal SCC (annual percentage change in EAR, −4.6%; P = .03). Conclusion In patients with HNSCC, the risk and distribution of SPM differ [...]

Charlotte Parker2011-01-03T19:06:39-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

RJ Reynolds’ ads urge tobacco pouches for smokers

Source: washingtonexaminer.com Author: Emery P. Dalesio R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is targeting people who resolve to quit smoking in the new year with advertisements suggesting they switch to its smokeless tobacco pouches, a move critics say is an attempt to keep people from quitting nicotine. The ads mark the company's first campaign aimed at getting smokers to switch to the pouches known as snus, which Reynolds introduced in early 2009, spokesman David Howard said Wednesday. The carefully worded ads suggest, but don't say directly, that the pouches are a way to help kick the smoking habit. Under federal law, companies cannot claim that tobacco products work as smoking cessation products. But tobacco companies would love for smokers to think of them that way as cigarette sales fall because of higher taxes, smoking bans and falling social acceptability. The No. 2 U.S. cigarette maker is advertising in major magazines this month its suggestion for a "2011 Smoke-Free Resolution" in some ads that show the tobacco-filled white pouches dropping from the sky like confetti. The ads promote the company's Camel snus — small pouches filled with tobacco that users stick between the cheek and gum. "If you've decided to quit tobacco use, we support you. But if you're looking for smoke-free, spit-free, drama-free tobacco pleasure, Camel Snus is your answer. Logon to the Pleasure Switch Challenge and see how simple switching can be. Camel Snus — it might just change the way you enjoy tobacco," one ad says. "At this time, there [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-01T18:06:48-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Smoking may worsen pain for cancer patients

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Fran Lowry Patients with cancer who continue to smoke despite their diagnosis experience greater pain severity than their counterparts who quit or who have never smoked, according to new research published in the January 2011 issue of Pain. Not only is their pain more severe, but it interferes more with their activities of daily living, lead author Joseph W. Ditre, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Texas A & M University in College Station, told Medscape Medical News. "Many smokers, when they get cancer, feel that smoking is one of the only pleasures they have left to them and refuse to quit," he said in an interview. "But our research suggests that quitting has definite benefits. It’s one more thing that doctors can tell their patients to help them stop smoking." Continued smoking has been associated with an increased risk of developing a second primary tumor, reduces the effectiveness of treatment, and is associated with poorer survival rates, Dr. Ditre said. "The subtext for this is that smoking can also worsen cancer-related symptoms and treatment side effects, such as pain and fatigue." "About 75% of people with advanced-stage cancer report moderate to very severe pain, so it is a very big factor in terms of the disease course, and yet there is surprisingly little research on this topic," he added. Dr. Ditre, who led this work while he was earning his doctorate at the University of South Florida and Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, told Medscape Medical News [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-01T17:58:14-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cel-Sci to bump standard of care in head, neck cancer

Source: www.bioworld.com Author: Catherine Shaffer Cel-Sci Corp. began a carefully designed Phase III trial of Multikine, its investigational immunotherapy for head and neck cancer. Because Multikine is designed to recruit the support of a mostly healthy immune system, Cel-Sci is making a headlong charge at the goal of first-line therapy, instead of trying to develop the product in patients who have already received surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and have suppressed or damaged immune systems as a result. If Cel-Sci can prove the therapy works in the narrow three-week testing window granted by the FDA, Multikine stands to replace a standard of care that has changed little in half a century. "It makes no sense to develop an immunotherapy product for late-stage patients. You should develop it as a first line therapy, ahead of radiation or chemotherapy," Cel-Sci CEO Geert Kersten told BioWorld Today. Vienna, Va.-based Cel-Sci's clinical trial plan takes advantage of a nearly inevitable delay of up to six weeks between diagnosis and surgery in most head and neck cancers. The FDA has allowed Cel-Sci a three-week period to give Multikine to patients before they commence with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. This will not deprive any patients of the best possible standard-of-care while they also try an experimental therapy. Head and neck cancer strikes about 500,000 people annually worldwide. Some causal factors include smoking, drinking and chewing tobacco. Most cases are diagnosed outside the U.S., and about two-thirds of patients appear with advanced disease. The standard treatment for it [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-12-30T16:16:36-07:00December, 2010|Oral Cancer News|