Oral Cancer News – Page 82 – The Oral Cancer Foundation News Archive

NCI-Designated Cancer Centers Issue Statement in Support of New CDC Recommendations on HPV Vaccination

Source: The ASCO Post Posted: 1/11/2017 The 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers have issued a joint statement in support of recently revised recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve national vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV). According to the CDC, incidence rates of HPV-associated cancers have continued to rise, with approximately 39,000 new HPV-associated cancers now diagnosed each year in the United States. Although HPV vaccines can prevent the majority of cervical, anal, oropharyngeal, and other genital cancers, vaccination rates remain low across the United States, with just 41.9% of girls and 28.1% of boys completing the recommended vaccine series. New Recommendations The new guidelines from the CDC recommend that children under age 15 should receive 2 doses of the 9-valent HPV vaccine at least 6 months apart. Adolescents and young adults older than 14 should continue to complete the 3-dose series. Research shows there are a number of barriers to overcome to improve vaccination rates, including a lack of strong recommendations from physicians and parents not understanding that this vaccine protects against several types of cancer. In an effort to overcome these barriers, NCI-designated cancer centers have organized a continuing series of national summits to share new research, discuss best practices, and identify collective action toward improving vaccination rates. The original joint statement, published in January 2016, was the major recommendation from a summit hosted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer in November 2015, which brought together experts from the [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-01-11T16:57:19-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Artificial larynx implant helps throat cancer patient breathe and speak

Source: www.ctvnews.ca Author: staff Sixteen months after receiving an artificial larynx, a 56-year-old French man suffering from throat cancer can now whisper and breathe normally. A report published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine considers this to be a significant first achievement. Thanks to the implant, a 56-year-old throat cancer patient can now whisper and breathe normally. © ChrisChrisW / Istock.com This is the first time that doctors have observed a patient with the implant long term recover functions such as breathing and speaking after the complete removal of the larynx. Thanks to an artificial voice box, implanted in 2015 at France's Strasbourg-Hautepierre university hospital, the 56-year-old Frenchman, who lives in Alsace, can now whisper in a comprehensible manner and breathe normally. The patient has also recovered his sense of smell, which was damaged by the removal of the larynx. Other than the vocal cords, the larynx features an upper valve, called the epiglottis, which closes when food passes down the throat to prevent it from entering the windpipe. The prosthetic larynx was developed by a French company called Protip Médical. It consists of a rigid titanium and silicone structure replacing the larynx and a removable titanium part that mimics the function of the epiglottis. The only problem that remains unresolved in the implant is the function of the epiglottis. As a result, the patient coughs from time to time when eating, as food accidentally enters the windpipe. However, the surgeons still consider the functioning implant [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-01-11T09:41:28-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Feds, cancer centers aim to boost HPV vaccinations

Source: www.dispatch.com Author: JoAnne Viviano Faced with getting her daughter the HPV vaccine, which helps protect against cervical and other cancers, Anaraquel Sanguinetti paused. The human papillomavirus is spread through sexual contact, and the Westerville mom didn’t want her now-18-year-old daughter to think she was promoting promiscuity. So Sanguinetti did some research. And she had a long talk with her daughter, and another with her doctor. In the end, daughter Celine got the vaccine last year. “We are discovering every day new reasons why people obtain cancer, so it’s just another added layer of protection for my daughter for her future, because you just never know,” Sanguetti said. “ I didn’t want to have a regret.” Sanguetti is in the minority. Though vaccinating against HPV is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and countless cancer centers and health-care providers, most children in the United States have not been vaccinated against HPV. Calling that “a serious public health threat,” dozens of cancer centers released a joint statement on Wednesday urging more parents and pediatricians to get onboard. The statement endorses the CDC’s recent revisions to its HPV vaccine recommendations. Vaccinating, the statement says, could help prevent the nearly 40,000 cases of HPV-associated cancers diagnosed in the United States each year. “Get the HPV vaccine for your child so they don’t have to hear those words: ‘You have cancer,’ “ said Electra Paskett, co-leader of cancer control at Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, which is among the institutions [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-01-11T09:30:48-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Head and neck cancer art exhibition unveils hidden experience

Source: edmontonjournal.com Author: Madeleine Cummings Few words are as terrifying as these three: “You have cancer.” “When you’re told you have cancer, everything seems to fall apart,” said Ken Roth, who was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma on the base of his tongue four years ago. “Your head’s spinning, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what the results are going to be,” he said. Brad Necyk, an artist and PhD student in psychiatry at the University of Alberta, tried to capture some of that disorientation in an installation that features a fragmented video of Roth’s face. His art is part of a new multimedia exhibition called “FLUX: Responding to Head and Neck Cancer,” which explores how head and neck cancer affects patients’ lives. (Ingrid Bachmann, Sean Caulfield, Jude Griebel, Jill Ho-You and Heather Huston also have works in the exhibit.) Roth had three-quarters of the base of his tongue removed and his illness led him to leave his job, but others have it a lot worse, he said. Patients with head and neck cancer often undergo lengthy (sometimes multiple) surgeries and they can have trouble speaking, swallowing and hearing. Some patients have to relearn how to speak, and then do it again after an additional surgery. These symptoms — many of which are visible — change how patients eat, communicate and behave in public. They can be devastating, and according to the Canadian Cancer Society, depression is common among the thousands of Canadians who have these kinds [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-01-05T11:21:40-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Immunotherapies Form New Frontier in Treating Head and Neck Cancers

Source: OncLive.com Date: January 2nd, 2017 In August 2016, the FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with platinum-refractory squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).1 Not only was it the first immunotherapy approved for head and neck cancer (HNC), but it marked the first new drug approval for HNC in the United States in 20 years. “Now we have an agent that really changes the paradigm—a new class of treatment—and we are seeing amazing benefit in some patients,” said Tanguy Seiwert, MD, during an OncLive Peer Exchange® panel held during the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Annual Meeting. Less than a month later, the menu of immunotherapy options expanded as the FDA approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic SCCHN with disease progression on or after a platinum-based therapy. During the Peer Exchange, the panelists provided an overview of the immunotherapy terrain in HNC, a discussion that was filled with considerable hope and excitement. “When we try immunotherapies in the second-line setting, we see objective responses—sometimes deep, clinically meaningful, extremely durable responses—and we’re beginning to think that maybe, on some occasions, we may be able to cure patients with relapsed metastatic head and neck cancer,” said Kevin Harrington, MD, PhD. This is especially remarkable since such patients have generally had a survival of ≤1 year. The panelists concurred that the care of patients with HNC will evolve significantly over the next 5 to 10 years, as the tip of the immunotherapy [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-01-11T16:58:01-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Reducing Radiation Successfully Treats HPV-Positive Oropharynx Cancers and Minimizes Side Effects

Source: Yale Cancer Center, http://www.newswise.com/articles/reducing-radiation-successfully-treats-hpv-positive-oropharynx-cancers-and-minimizes-side-effects Released: 12/26/2016 Newswise — Human papillomavirus-positive oropharynx cancers (cancers of the tonsils and back of the throat) are on rise. After radiation treatment, patients often experience severe, lifelong swallowing, eating, and nutritional issues. However, new clinical trial research shows reducing radiation for some patients with HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas can maintain high cure rates while sparing some of these late toxicities. “We found there are some patients have very high cure rates with reduced doses of radiation,” said Barbara Burtness, MD, Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology), Yale Cancer Center, Disease Research Team Leader for the Head and Neck Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital, and the chair of the ECOG-ACRIN head and neck committee. “Radiation dose reduction resulted in significantly improved swallowing and nutritional status,” she said. The study, published in the December 26 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that patients treated with reduced radiation had less difficulty swallowing solids (40 percent versus 89 percent of patients treated with standard doses of radiation) or impaired nutrition (10 percent versus 44 percent of patients treated with regular doses of radiation). “Today, many younger patients are presenting with HPV-associated squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx,” said Dr. Burtness. “And while traditional chemoradiation has demonstrated good tumor control and survival rates for patients, too often they encounter unpleasant outcomes that can include difficulty swallowing solid foods, impaired nutrition, aspiration and feeding tube dependence,” said Dr. Burtness. “Younger patients may have to deal with these [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-03-29T19:04:26-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Why won’t our doctors face up to the dangers of radiotherapy?

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1089091/Why-wont-doctors-face-dangers-radiotherapy.html Author: Isla Whitcroft It's a life-saver for thousands - but the side-effects can be devastating. A year after he'd undergone treatment for cancer of the tonsils, Richard Wayman felt a painful tingling in his legs. Within weeks, the 59-year- old shopkeeper was struggling to walk. He was admitted to hospital, where doctors carried out scans, X-rays and tests. 'The scans revealed lesions on my lungs, which raised fears that the cancer had spread, so I was admitted to another hospital for a biopsy and, as a result, contracted MRSA and pneumonia,' recalls Richard, from Colchester in Essex. 'From 11-and-a-half stone I went down to eight-and-a-half stone. I thought I was never going to get out of there.' Finally, the lung lesions were diagnosed as a side-effect of the radiotherapy Richard had undergone for his cancer. However, his problems only got worse: a few weeks after a routine tooth extraction, the bone around the extraction started to crumble and become infected. Within months he had an open weeping wound, running from his lower cheek through his jaw and into his mouth. The diagnosis: bone necrosis as a direct result of radiotherapy damage to the jaw. Richard is one of the many thousands of cancer survivors who have developed terrible conditions as a result of the radiotherapy treatment that helped save them. Around 4 to 5 per cent of all head and neck cancer patients suffer problems with swallowing or breathing, fistulas (open holes) in the jaw and gum, loss [...]

Charlotte Parker2017-03-29T19:04:40-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Hog jowls and clementines: A bid to awaken cancer patients’ ruined sense of taste

Source: www.statnews.com Author: Eric Boodman The medicines were rich and strange, their active ingredients so particular they sounded fictional. Credit: Molly Ferguson for Stat One regimen involved jowl bits from Red Wattle hogs; the pigs were bred from sows named Fart Blossom and Hildegard, and had spent the end of their lives gorging on acorns, hickory nuts, apples, and black walnuts. Another experimental drug included the flesh of the Ubatuba pepper, picked when it was red as a Santa suit, dried at precisely 90 degrees for five days, and then pulverized, seeds and all, into a fragrant, pinkish powder. These concoctions were meant to be therapeutic — but they hadn’t been devised by pharmacologists or biochemists or even lab techs. Their inventors had no scientific training whatsoever: They were celebrity Montreal chef Frédéric Morin and renowned Atlanta pastry-maker Taria Camerino, who would be facing off in an unusual culinary duel. They’d been challenged to help solve a problem that most clinicians and neuroscientists aren’t able to — the impairment of taste in cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy and radiation. This cook-off in the University of Kentucky’s demo kitchen was the opener for the second annual Neurogastronomy Symposium, which was born over a boozy, late-night chance encounter between neuropsychologist Dan Han and Morin in the chef’s restaurant. Together, they envisioned a conference that would combine neuroscience, agriculture, history, nutrition, medicine, and cooking — to understand the art and science of why we eat what we eat, and how we [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-12-21T09:06:48-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Genetic variants are associated with susceptibility to mouth and throat cancer

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: news release A number of genetic variants associated with susceptibility to oral cavity and pharyngeal cancer have been described in an international study published in the journal Nature Genetics. The most noteworthy finding was an association between cancer of the oropharynx and certain polymorphisms (alternative versions of a given DNA sequence) found in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genomic region. HLAs, proteins found on the surface of most cells in the body, play an important role in recognizing potential threats and triggering the immune response to foreign substances. According to Eloiza Helena Tajara, a professor at the São José do Rio Preto Medical School (FAMERP) in São Paulo State, Brazil, and co-author of the article, a specific group of variants in this region, located on chromosome 6, is associated with enhanced protection against oropharyngeal cancer caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). "Previous research showed that these same variants confer protection against cancer of the uterine cervix, which is known to be associated with HPV," Tajara said. "Our findings suggest that the genes that control the immune system play a key role in predisposition to HPV-related tumors. This discovery points to the possibility of clarifying the mechanisms whereby such tumors develop and of designing methods for monitoring risk groups." The study was coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and involved 40 research groups in Europe, the United States, and South America. The Brazilian participants are members of the Head & Neck Genome Project (GENCAPO), [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-12-17T11:02:17-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Predicting throat cancer recurrence with a blood test

Source: knowridge.com Author: from University of Michigan Health System A new study suggests the possibility of predicting at its earliest stages when a type of head and neck cancer will come back. Oropharyngeal cancer — which occurs in the throat, tonsils and back of the tongue — is frequently linked to the human papilloma virus. That’s good news, in a way, as HPV-related cancers are generally more responsive to treatment. But for about 15 to 20 percent of these patients, the treatment won’t work and their cancer will return. There are no known biomarkers to predict when treatments are likely to fail. In a new study in Clinical Cancer Research, researchers found that patients whose oropharyngeal cancer recurred had higher levels of antibodies for two proteins, E6 and E7, which are found in HPV-fueled cancers. The finding suggests a potential blood-based marker that could predict when cancer is likely to return. For this study, researchers looked back at 52 patients with advanced oropharyngeal cancer who had enrolled in a prior study: 22 who had developed recurrence and 30 who had not. The two groups were similar in age, cancer classification and smoking status. All tumors were linked to the human papilloma virus. On average, cancer recurred 13 months after a patient’s treatment ended. Serum was measured via a blood test at diagnosis or start of treatment, then repeated after treatment ended and about every three months after. Initially, there was no difference in E6 and E7 antibody levels between those [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-12-17T10:55:56-07:00December, 2016|Oral Cancer News|