7/24/2007 Austin, TX staff Forbes.com Heather Burcham, whose battle with cervical cancer led her to urge legislators to try to keep girls from sharing in her fate, has died of the disease. She was 31. Burcham, of Houston, died Saturday. "Her pain and suffering have forever ceased," Gov. Rick Perry said Monday. He said she was "an inspiration to myself, my staff and others." Perry issued an executive order in February that would have required the newly approved human papillomavirus vaccine for girls entering the sixth grade, to help protect them from cervical cancer. Members of the Legislature were outraged, complaining that Perry circumvented the legislative process, that the vaccine was too new and that making it mandatory could encourage young people to be sexually active. The human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer is transmitted through sexual contact. Burcham went to the Capitol to voice support for the vaccine in February. In April, legislators passed a bill blocking state officials from following Perry's order. In a May news conference to announce that he would not veto the bill, Perry closed with a video of Burcham speaking from her hospice bed. With oxygen tubes snaking out of her nose, she spoke of the pain she had endured for four years. She also mourned for the husband she would never meet and the children she would never raise. "If I could help one child, take this cancer away from one child, it would mean the world to me," she said. "If they [...]

7/24/2007 Chicago, IL Phil Vettel and Robert Mitchum ChicagoTribune.com Chemotherapy treatments could rob Chicago's rising culinary star of his ability to taste. Grant Achatz, the 33-year-old superstar chef whose Lincoln Park restaurant, Alinea, is ranked among the very best in the world, is facing a medical challenge with a painful twist. On Monday, Achatz announced that he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth. The cancer, which doctors believe has spread to Achatz's lymph nodes, is life-threatening. The lesions are on the chef's tongue. If chemotherapy is successful, there remains a possibility that Achatz will lose all sense of taste. "It's Shakespearean," said Nick Kokonas, Achatz's friend and co-owner of Alinea. "This is like a painter whose eyes are taken from him, a pianist who has his fingers cut off." An optimistic-sounding Achatz doesn't quite see it that way. "People confuse the role of the chef," he said. "A lot of what I do is conceptualize. I'm not the guy who cooks everything every night; it's impossible. I've got a really strong team (at Alinea), and their response has been amazingly positive. They're going to rally around this." Achatz burst on the dining scene in 2001, when, after four years working under Thomas Keller at the acclaimed French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., he was hired as executive chef at Trio in Evanston. Not only did Achatz maintain the restaurant's four-star status, but a year later he made Food & Wine magazine's list of Best New [...]

7/20/2007 Bhubaneswar, India staff NewIndPress.com Laser technology has been used in surgeries since early seventies but innovations have made it an important tool today to treat superficial lesions in oral cancers. As oral cancer is most common in Orissa due to the tobacco chewing habits, the ‘carbon dioxide laser’ is perhaps the right tool to manage the surgical requirements and a finding from 128 cases shows that it has got extremely good tumour control capabilities. A study carried out over nearly a year at Panda Medical Centre (PMC), Telengapentha, has found that the use of carbon dioxide laser increases accuracy, improves accessibility and minimal collateral tissue damage through instantaneous tissue sealing, reduced pain, edema and minimal blood loss. According to consultant ENT and head and neck surgeon Dr Sanjoy Panda of PMC, the most important benefit with this technique is sealing of lymphatic vessels as it demands paramount importance in cancer surgery. “The small invisible vessels are sealed spontaneously by laser. This is necessary while dealing with tumours and preventing seeding of wounds,” he adds. “There is recent data that compares excising tumours with knife to excision with laser, and finally, to excising with laser and vapourising the base. There is a marked decrease in the recurrence with the latter method,” he points out. Carbon dioxide laser has an important role to play in Orissa as most of the cancer patients are tobacco chewers and the cost of therapy is less which makes it attractive for the needy, the cancer [...]

7/18/2007 Northamptonshire, UK staff Evening Telegraph (www.northantset.co.uk) A dying man will find out today if he is suitable for a revolutionary cancer treatment which experts say could save his life. Brad Tompkins will undergo an MRI scan at University College Hospital in London which will determine whether he could benefit from the breakthrough laser therapy to treat his mouth cancer. Mr Tompkins, of Rushden, has rejected the chance of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as well as surgery to remove parts of his tongue and throat, because it would severely affect his quality of life. It leaves the new treatment his only hope for treatment. Mr Tompkins, who has been told his cancer is terminal, said: "I'm so nervous. Essentially, I'll find out whether I've got weeks left to live or if I've got the rest of my life to look forward to. "Doctors will be carrying out an MRI scan to see if the treatment could work. "I'm frightened and excited because this treatment could be perfect. Other options involved surgery to remove my tongue and voice box. "That would not be an option for me because I have to talk to people –I have to communicate." Mr Tompkins, who was diagnosed with cancer in April, said he only found out about photodynamic therapy (PDT) as an alternative to chemotherapy and radiotherapy after Northampton Welfare Rights showed him a cutting from a newspaper a few weeks ago. He is concerned that had he known about the procedure earlier, doctors would have [...]

7/16/2007 British Columbia, Canada staff www.ctv.ca Oral cancer will be diagnosed in over 3,200 Canadians this year and will prove fatal in over 1,100. That's usually because it is caught late, when the cancer has spread and survival rates are around 20 per cent. Now scientists in B.C. are testing a new tool they hope will shine a light on this little-recognized disease. Researchers at the B.C. Cancer Agency have developed with LED Medical Diagnostics Inc. a tool called the VELscope, a hand-held device that usees fluorescence technology to allow dentists and hygienists to scan for abnormal tissue that may be cancerous. B.C. is the first region in Canada to test the VELscope. They are part of a test project that they hope will lead to making the scope a standard screening device in every dentist's office. Balvir Dhadda's life may have been saved by the VELscope. She had been suffering from what she thought were stubborn cold sores in her mouth. Her dentist used the experimental tool and discovered the cold sores were actually cancer. "I was devastated," Dhadda told CTV News. "I'd never heard of oral cancer myself." In Dhatta's case, the VELscope found her cancer early, at the stage when treatment has an over 80 per cent survival rate. "Basically, they saved my life," she said. Oral cancer is more common that most think. It's diagnosed more often than ovarian cancer, liver cancer or cervical cancer, but most aren't aware of it. But it can be disfiguring, [...]

7/15/2007 Kaohsiung, Taiwan Ralph Jennings ScientificAmerican.com For centuries, hundreds of millions of people across Asia, from Pakistan to Palau, have chewed the spicy date-like fruit of the betel palm for a quick buzz. Then four years ago, a World Health Organization study found that chewing betel nuts can cause oral cancer and that the rate of these malignant mouth tumors was highest in Asia where the betel nut is a widely used stimulant. Despite the cancer link, betel nut addicts are chewing on in many parts of Asia. But in Taiwan, the findings have spurred a government health campaign against the nut which is grown on palm trees across the sub-tropical island southeast of China. "If you don't want oral cancer, the most direct way is to quit chewing betel nuts," Wu Chien-yuan, chief of cancer prevention in the Taiwan health ministry, told Reuters. Betel nut, which contains an addictive stimulant similar to nicotine, is widely used in parts of Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan and the South Pacific as a breath freshener, a hunger antidote, a substitute for cigarettes and as a way to get high. Users often chew it all day long, causing all sorts of unpleasant side-effects such as red-stained teeth and pavements covered with red spittle as many users spit out the betel nut's remnants as they chew. "Whether it harms you is an individual thing," said Kaohsiung betel chewer Wan Chin-hsian, 35. "It's healthy to spit it out." Under pressure from the government health drive, betel [...]

7/13/2007 Memphis, TN staff CancerConsultants.com According to the results of two studies published in the journal Cancer, patients who have no health insurance or limited health insurance tend to be diagnosed with more advanced stages of breast and oropharyngeal cancer. An estimated 20% of Americans under the age of 65 lack health insurance and many others have only limited insurance. A lack of health insurance has been linked with less access to preventive care, less timely receipt of care, and a lower likelihood of receiving recommended treatments. Two recent studies built upon these findings by exploring the relationship between insurance status and stage at cancer diagnosis. The types of cancer evaluated by these studies—breast and oropharyngeal (a type of head and neck cancer)—are quite treatable when caught early. Early detection, however, requires access to screening and follow-up as well as timely and appropriate evaluation of symptoms. Researchers involved in the breast cancer study looked at more than 500,000 women over the age of 40 years who were reported to the National Cancer Data Base between 1998 and 2003.[1] They reported that the proportion of women with advanced breast cancer (Stage III or Stage IV) at the time of diagnosis was 8% among privately insured women, 18% among uninsured women, and 19% among women being treated on Medicaid. Uninsured women and women on Medicaid were significantly less likely to have Stage I breast cancer than privately insured women. Researchers involved with the oropharyngeal study looked at over 40,000 individuals who were [...]

7/13/2007 Indianapolis, IN staff TheIndyChannel.com Bob Pychinka lived on a feeding tube for nine months because he was not able to swallow foods or liquids. Chemotherapy and radiation to treat neck cancer severely weakened his throat muscles. “It was harrowing,” the 62-year-old retired educator told 6News Staying Healthy reporter Stacia Matthews. Pychinka suffered from dysphagia, a potentially fatal swallowing disorder that affects 15 million people. Symptoms can range from mild discomfort, including coughing during or after swallowing, to a complete inability to swallow. Some patients develop aspiration pneumonia, where food or saliva go down the wind pipe and into the lungs. It’s one of the leading causes of death among older people. Susan Michel-Dant, a clinical speech pathologist with St. Vincent Rehabilitation Services, called dysphagia “a misunderstood and underdiagnosed medical condition.” She told Matthews nearly 75 percent of stroke survivors develop dysphagia. It can also occur following meningitis, traumatic head or spinal cord injury and radiation therapy for head and neck cancer. A new treatment called vital stim therapy uses a small current passed through electrodes placed on the neck to stimulate and retrain muscles and allow a patient to eat and drink again. Vital stim therapy, the only neuromuscular electrical stimulation approved by the FDA to treat dysphagia, must be prescribed by a physician and requires several therapy sessions to restore swallowing. “The first time I was able to drink a little soda and eat some basic food, it was unbelievable,” Pychinka said. “And when I sit down and [...]

7/13/2007 Dublin, Ireland Dr Robert O’Sullivan Irish Medical Times (www.imt.ie) Ulysses S Grant, for Americans is one of the most famous past presidents of their country. No child in America can expect to leave school without having a knowledge of his civil war exploits and it is the image of Grant that graces the American fifty dollar bill. He was elected to the office of president twice and accepted the surrender of Robert E Lee, one of the final acts of the civil war. As well as the civil war, his exploits in the Mexican-American war of the 1840s are the stuff of legend. As US President his terms of office were marred by years of scandal and corruption, however he is well remembered for helping African-Americans and his tough stance against the Ku Klux Klan. The end was nigh Seven years after leaving office, Grant developed a sore throat, the first symptom of the cancer that would end his life. He had been declared bankrupt after bad investments and being the victim of investment fraud and he was hastily writing his memoirs to generate some much needed income. Having been promised a large sum of money by Mark Twain for producing this book, the last thing he needed at this stage was the terrible news of his own impending demise. Grant was said to have to been a stubborn man and he attended his physician only because of his wife’s insistence. The sore throat was only getting worse and [...]

7/10/2007 Albany, NY Cathleen F. Crowley FireRescue1.com High school photos of Greg Burgoon on the basketball court show a young man with muscular legs who stood a head shorter than any player on the court. Though only 5 feet 6 inches tall, he had a 34-inch vertical leap and a gutsy spirit that won him a starting position on the 1967 Voorheesville varsity team in his sophomore year. Burgoon always was a fighter. So, when his mouth cancer came back in May 2003, just three months after surgery to remove it, he geared up for a battle. Burgoon broke the news to his family and they hugged, all of them crying. Then he jumped up on the couch and punched the air like Rocky Balboa. "I'm going to beat this! I'm going to beat this!" he repeated with each jab, tears streaming down his face. "It's the only time I saw him cry," said his sister, Sherry Burgoon, a school teacher who helped care for him. Burgoon was 49 and a volunteer firefighter for the Voorheesville Fire Department. He had risen through the ranks at Albany Truck Sales since he began working there at age 18, to become parts manager. A hard worker with a vast knowledge of obscure parts for old Mack trucks, Burgoon was loved and respected by his co-workers. His boss told him he'd have a job, no matter what. Burgoon lived alone in Voorheesville, down the road from two of his sisters. His son, Matthew, 18, [...]