Oral Cancer News – Page 252 – The Oral Cancer Foundation News Archive

Reynolds tobacco closer to buying smoking cessation products company

Source: Beasley Allen Law Firm Author: Kurt Niland Reynolds American, the second largest American producer of cigarettes and other tobacco products, is in the advanced stages of negotiating a purchase of Niconovum, a Swedish company that manufacturessmoking cessation. If the deal works, as it appears it will, it shows the determination of the tobacco giants to cash in on the “whole cycle of a smoker from the first puff to the last piece of gum,” said Chip Brian, a business analyst for SmarTrend. Based in Helsingborg, Sweden, Niconovum produces nicotine-replacement therapies (NRTS), smoking cessation products designed to provide users with a smokeless form of nicotine relief. Niconovum’s products are Zonnicpouches (small bags containing a nicotine powder that users put beneath their lips), Zonnic “pepparmint” [sic] mouth spray, and Zonnic gum. SmarTrend’s analyst points out that both Reynolds and the Altria Group, owner of Philip Morris USA and other tobacco product companies, ownpharmaceutical companies, but Reynolds’ purchase of Niconovum would be the first time a tobacco giant marketed and sold a smoking cessationproduct. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the potential deal would mark the latest and most dramatic move by Reynolds into nicotine products that represent alternatives to cigarettes.” “Sales of cigarettes in the U.S. have been declining for years, prompting Reynolds to move into products that studies have shown present much smaller health risks than cigarettes,” the WSJ explains. Reynolds’ acquisition of Niconovum might seem contradictory and even hypocritical, but it makes good sense for the tobacco company. Somesmoking [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-19T22:30:41-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Are e-cigarettes too good to be true?

Source: Beasley Allen Law Firm Author: Kurt Niland I have that “born late” feeling. I quit smoking before I had a chance to “smoke” electronic cigarettes, the latest and most overtly sci-fi smoking cessation tool to come along in my lifetime. My first attempt to quit smoking was in 1989, 4 years after I started smoking, when my college roommate yanked a brand-new pack of smokes out of my hand and chucked them to the middle of a retaining pond near our New Mexico State dorm. I had given Keith my permission to do that or something like it “if you ever catch me with a pack of cigarettes again,” which was about seven hours earlier that same day. Subsequent attempts to quit involved Zyban, nicotine gum, nicotine patches, nicotine lozenges, various herbal “de-tox” remedies, and Chantix. I even bought this little gadget that punched holes in my cigarettes, allowing most of the smoke to escape through the filter. As ingenious as that device seemed to me, it was as frustrating as trying to drink with a broken straw. After a minute of sucking air, I simply got another straw that wasn’t broken. Eventually, the only method I had left to try was the primitive, old-fashioned cold turkey method. Had electronic cigarettes been around when I was trying to quit, I assure you, I would have bought them. The idea of an alternative cigarette is so appealing that many smokers probably have conceived of a fake cigarette at some point in their lives. I remember [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-03-18T10:39:18-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Oral cancer survivor wins fourth straight Iditarod

Source: CNN Author: Tracy Sabo (CNN) -- Lance Mackey rode into Nome, Alaska, and the record books, becoming the first musher to win the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race four times in a row. The 39-year-old throat cancer survivor from Fairbanks completed the 1,049-mile race in 8 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 9 seconds on Tuesday, the second-fastest finish in race history. "Even the doctors who said I would never race dogs again doubted what I was able to do," he said. "You know, people are easy to judge and doubt somebody's ability, but the mind is a very powerful thing." Among the throngs that boisterously cheered as Mackey pulled up to the burled arch on Nome's Front Street was his father, Dick Mackey, the 1978 Iditarod champion. "You've done something that will never be repeated, son," the senior Mackey said as he greeted his son with a hug. "I told my Dad I think I got one more in me, though," the younger Mackey said later. Mackey has dominated the sport in recent years and is the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 Iditarod champion. He was inducted into the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame in February "for capturing multiple titles in two of the world's longest sled dog races." Mackey is also a four-time champion of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest race from Fairbanks to Nome, as well as the record-holder for the most (four) consecutive first place finishes in that race. On Tuesday, Mackey took home $50,000 and a [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-04-19T22:31:12-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

George vs. The Dragon

Source: ESPN.com Author: Rick Reilly DAY 17: Tuesday, March 9, 7:30 a.m. -- Denver Nuggets coach George Karl pops in his mouthpiece and puts on his helmet and braces himself for a brutal 15 minutes, but this isn't football. This is cancer radiation. We're at Denver's Swedish Medical Center. The helmet is actually a white, hard-mesh mask that fits to every contour of Karl's big bucket head. It has red crosses all over it, like a hockey goalie's. He lays his 283 pounds on the table and the technicians clamp the mask on hard. How Karl breathes I'll never know. They secure his limbs and ask him to hold a blue plastic donut so no part of him moves. He looks like Hannibal Lecter about to get fried. "It makes you a little claustrophobic," the 58-year-old coach tries to say through the mask. "But what are you gonna do? Leave?" Coaching the wildly talented but wildly uneven Nuggets is hard enough, let alone doing it with throat and neck cancer, but that's what Karl is trying to do. Everybody tells him it's not possible, and today, maybe he's starting to believe them. With only three of his torturous six weeks of treatment done, and the inside of his mouth looking like he just took 100 bites out of a lava-hot pizza slice, and his head throbbing and his eyes hollow, Karl looks like a guy who should be on a stretcher, not an NBA bench. "George, this is only going [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-03-18T09:51:54-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Metabolic activity of head and neck cancer may help guide treatment

Source: www.oncologystat.com Author: Staff The metabolic activity of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma on pretreatment imaging independently predicts outcomes in patients who undergo intensity-modulated radiation therapy, new data show. This imaging information can be used to tailor treatment, especially to reduce the risk of distant metastases, lead investigator Dr. Min Yao said at a head and neck cancer symposium sponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology. Higher standardized uptake value (SUV) of the primary tumor and of the lymph nodes predicted worse outcomes in multivariate analyses presented by Dr. Yao, a radiation oncologist at the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. "Several papers have shown that the standardized uptake value (SUV) is a prognostic factor in head and neck cancer," Dr. Yao told attendees. Most of these studies were small series, involved patients receiving conventional radiation therapy, and did not evaluate SUV of the primary tumor and lymph nodes separately. Dr. Yao and his colleagues analyzed outcomes in 177 patients treated for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) between 1999 and 2006. The patients had a pretreatment positron emission tomography scan using fluorodeoxyglucose as the tracer (FDG-PET), and the maximal SUV was determined for both the primary tumor and the involved lymph nodes. The patients then underwent IMRT with curative intent. Seventy-seven percent of the patients were male. Twenty-nine percent were receiving IMRT postoperatively, whereas the rest were receiving it as definitive therapy. The cancer was most commonly located in the oropharynx (49%) and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-18T08:51:12-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine reduced further disease in women treated for cancer precursors

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: staff HPV vaccine quadrivalent (types 6, 11, 16 and 18) decreased HPV-related disease in women previously treated for cancer precursors, according to the post-hoc analysis of findings from two trials. Warner Huh, MD, associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, presented these findings at The Society for Gynecologic Oncologists’ 2010 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer in San Francisco. Although the HPV4 (Merck, Gardisil) has been shown to prevent cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia, vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia, genital warts and adenocarcinoma, it is unclear if the vaccine may benefit patients who have already been exposed to the virus and had subsequent surgery. Researchers analyzed data from 17,622 women who were randomly assigned to the HPV4 or placebo. Overall, 587 women assigned to the vaccine and 763 assigned to placebo underwent cervical definitive therapy. Patients in the placebo group were at higher risk for incidence of CIN, vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia, vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia, genital warts and adenocarcinoma at a rate of 11.1 per 100 person-years, with an average of 1.4 years after surgery, compared with patients assigned to HPV4. Regardless of causal HPV type, patients who were vaccinated had a reduced risk for developing further disease, with a rate of 45% (95% CI, 21-62). Women treated for vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia, vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia and genital warts assigned to placebo had the highest risk for further disease, with a rate of 33.7 per 100 person-years. The risk for further [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-17T20:02:24-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Lymphedema common in head and neck cancer

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Author: Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Treatment of head and neck cancer causes potentially severe lymphedema, which responds to complete decongestive therapy in most cases, a retrospective chart review showed. The most severe lymphedema occurred in patients treated with surgery and radiation therapy, followed by definitive surgery alone. Complete decongestive therapy led to clinical improvement in a majority of the patients, including 83% of those treated with surgery alone. "Lymphedema is vastly under-recognized and under-reported in patients with head and neck cancer," Jan S. Lewin, PhD, of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said in an interview at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium (MHNCS). "The lymphedema can be just as severe as what's seen after treatment of breast and other types of cancer. Lymphedema in patients with head and neck cancer can be terribly disfiguring and cause severe functional problems." "Complete decongestive therapy leads to clinically significant improvement in most patients, whether it's performed in a clinic or at home," she added. Available evidence suggests that fewer than half of patients with head and neck cancer develop lymphedema after treatment. However, cosmetic and functional sequelae can be severe, including problems with speaking, eating, airway obstruction, and drooling, as well as self-image. As compared with lymphedema in other cancers, a paucity of information exists about the presentation and treatment of the condition in patients with head and neck cancer, said Lewin. In an effort to add to the information base, she and her colleagues retrospectively reviewed [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-13T12:45:20-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Coalition to Stop Contraband Tobacco applauds Senate for passage of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009

Source: prnewswire.com Author: press release The Coalition to Stop Contraband Tobacco today praised the U.S. Senate for passing S. 1147, the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act of 2009. Sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 20 senators, this legislation will help combat online cigarette sales that have robbed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from the states and that undermine state laws that prevent youth access to tobacco products. "Passage of the PACT Act is a huge victory for American taxpayers, American small business owners and America's youth," said Scott Ramminger, AWMA president and CEO and coalition spokesperson. "We applaud the Senate for its action today and thank Sen. Kohl for his leadership in ensuring that contraband tobacco sales are eliminated." Numerous stakeholders have worked with Sen. Kohl through the years to pass the PACT Act, which was passed in the House of Representatives last May. The PACT Act closes gaps in current federal laws regulating "remote" or "delivery" sales of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. "In a recent study we found that illegal cigarette sales cost states $5 billion per year, and that with online sales there is almost no age verification at the time of purchase," continued Ramminger. "We hope the House will pass this bill quickly and that President Obama will act swiftly to sign this common sense legislation into law so that we can put an end to the illegal sale of tobacco products," conclude Ramminger. The [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-13T11:50:39-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Smokeless tobacco launches an attack on U.S. market

Source: www.tobacco-facts.net Author: staff General Snus, a smoke-free moist tobacco product originated in Scandinavian countries in the 19th century, is currently holding a massive promotional campaign across the United States. Swedish Match, the manufacturer of General Snus brand has introduced a multi-million-dollar marketing drive intended for bringing the steam-cured tobacco pouches to wealthy tobacco-lovers in major markets across the nation. The General Snus are also promoted at high-end events, such as New York Fashion Week and several notable Film Festivals. Snus are made and sold in cooled pouches packed in cans. The consumers put these tobacco items between cheek and lip and sip it getting their portion of nicotine. Snus is extremely famous among upscale professionals in Sweden, where the product saw the world for the first time almost two centuries ago. Whereas these products are still relatively unknown to the majority of American smokers, they are going through an outstanding growth of popularity since the initial nationwide launch in 2000, according to Swedish Match. The latest General Snus promotional campaign – under slogan “Satisfaction: the Original Pursuit”— was launched at the Sundance Film Festival held in Salt Lake City in January, where Swedish Match has acquired sponsorship deal. Other venues for the marketing campaign include art shows in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, and New York’s Fashion Week. Lars Hansson, the communication director for Swedish Match told the press that in Scandinavian countries snus has been generally used by the upscale audience, and that has been the major [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-03-13T11:46:43-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Oral sex can add to risk of HPV positive cancers

Source: www.time.com Author: Coco Masters Oral sex can get most men's attention. The topic becomes considerably more relevant, however, when coupled with a new study linking the human papillomavirus (HPV) to an increased risk of a kind of oral cancer more often seen in men. The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), shows that men and women who reported having six or more oral-sex partners during their lifetime had a nearly ninefold increased risk of developing cancer of the tonsils or at the base of the tongue. Of the 300 study participants, those infected with HPV were also 32 times more likely to develop this type of oral cancer than those who did not have the virus. These findings dwarf the increased risk of developing this so-called oropharyngeal cancer associated with the two major risk factors: smoking (3 times greater) or drinking (2.5 times greater). HPV infection drives cancerous growth, as it is widely understood to do in the cervix. But unlike cervical cancer, this type of oral cancer is more prevalent in men. HPV is ubiquitous. Of the 120 strains isolated from humans — about 40 of which are in the mouth and genital tracts — Merck's recently FDA-approved vaccine, Gardasil, protects against four: HPV-6 and HPV-11, which cause warts; and HPV-16 and HPV-18, which cause about 70% of cervical cancers. Similarly, according to the study, HPV-16 was present in 72 of the 100 cancer patients enrolled in the study. Between 12,000 and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-19T22:32:29-07:00March, 2010|Oral Cancer News|