chemotherapy – Page 7 – Oral Cancer News

Imaging method has potential to stratify head and neck cancer patients

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: press release Manchester researchers have identified a potential new way to predict which patients with head and neck cancer may benefit most from chemotherapy. These patients commonly receive pre-treatment induction chemotherapy, before either surgery or radiotherapy, to reduce the risk of disease spread. However the effectiveness of such treatment is reduced in tumours with poor blood flow. Previous studies have shown that CT scans can be used to assess tumour blood flow. Now researchers at The University of Manchester and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust - both part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre - have explored the use of MRI scans in predicting which patients would benefit from induction chemotherapy. Professor Catharine West, who led the study, said: "It's also important to identify those patients who are unlikely to respond to induction therapy so that we can skip ahead in the treatment pathway and offer them potentially more effective treatments and hopefully improve their outcome." The team used an imaging technique known as dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), where a contrast agent tracer is injected into a patient's vein whilst they have a series of MRI scans taken. This allows scientists and doctors to investigate the blood flow and vessel structure of a patient's tumour. They found that the blood flow of a patient's tumour before they received induction therapy could predict response to treatment. In a paper recently published in the journal Oral Oncology, the group report that those with high tumour blood flow were more [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-09-19T08:39:53-07:00September, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

AstraZeneca joins the world of immunotherapy against cancer

Source: www.youthhealthmag.com Author: staff Cancer drug companies have been fighting lately in a completely different and interesting arena: immunotherapy. The competition is indeed heating up that firms such as AstraZeneca are willing to pay millions of dollars for promising treatments. AstraZeneca, through its research company called MedImmune, has just recently announced its decision to purchase a novel drug INO-3112 from Inovio, based in Pennsylvania, for a staggering price tag of $727 million. INO-3112 is a drug for immunotherapy, a new way of combating cancer by boosting the body's immune system. This then allows the antibodies and specific cells to fight off the tumor. The treatment may also provide synthetic proteins to boost the body's fighting chance. MedImmune believes that with the proper immunotherapy protocol for the patient, conventional methods such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which have plenty of serious risks, can now be significantly reduced, if not eliminated. In fact, patients may no longer have to go through surgery, which is a common first-line treatment. While AstraZeneca already has immunotherapy products in the market, the acquisition of INO-3112 will make it an instrument for combination therapies. As for Inovio, the drug, which is still not approved, is currently in the advanced stages of the clinical trials. It will be intended for treating head and neck cancers, as well as cervical cancer. While there are already cervical cancer vaccines, they cite the rather poor record of them. Their drug, on the other hand, will work on modifying DNA sequencing that will [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-08-13T07:39:58-07:00August, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

The Cost of Cancer Drugs

Source: www.cbsnew.comAuthor: Lesley Stahl The following is a script of "The Cost of Cancer Drugs" which aired on October 5, 2014, and was rebroadcast on June 21, 2015. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Richard Bonin, producer. Cancer is so pervasive that it touches virtually every family in this country. More than one out of three Americans will be diagnosed with some form of it in their lifetime. And as anyone who's been through it knows, the shock and anxiety of the diagnosis is followed by a second jolt: the high price of cancer drugs. They are so astronomical that a growing number of patients can't afford their co-pay, the percentage of their drug bill they have to pay out-of-pocket. As we first reported in October, this has led to a revolt against the drug companies led by some of the most prominent cancer doctors in the country. Dr. Leonard Saltz: We're in a situation where a cancer diagnosis is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy. Dr. Leonard Saltz is chief of gastrointestinal oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the nation's premier cancer centers, and he's a leading expert on colon cancer. Lesley Stahl: So, are you saying in effect, that we have to start treating the cost of these drugs almost like a side effect from cancer? Dr. Leonard Saltz: I think that's a fair way of looking at it. We're starting to see the term "financial toxicity" being used in the literature. Individual patients are going into [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-06-22T11:00:30-07:00June, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Keytruda doubles efficacy of only targeted therapy for head and neck cancer

Source: www.curetoday.com Author: Lauren M. Green The immunotherapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab), in a recent study, proved twice as effective for the treatment of head and neck cancer as Erbitux (cetuximab), the only targeted therapy indicated as a therapy for the disease. The multisite study offers the largest experience to date of how immunotherapy can be deployed in patients with head and neck cancer, and could change the way the disease is treated. The findings were announced May 29 during the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, a gathering of nearly 30,000 oncology professionals taking place in Chicago. Keytruda is an antibody designed to disable the protein PD-1 so it cannot do its job of keeping the immune system in check; this allows T cells to become more active in recognizing and fighting cancer cells. In the study, investigators found that the drug produced broad and durable responses in patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Fifty-six percent of patients in the study experienced some tumor shrinkage with Keytruda, and 86 percent of those patients continued to respond to treatment at data cutoff on March 23, 2015. Keytruda produced an overall response rate (ORR) of 25 percent, and it proved active in both HPV (human papillomavirus)-positive and HPV-negative patients. “The efficacy was remarkable — pembrolizumab seems to be roughly twice as effective, when measured by response, as our only targeted therapy, cetuximab,” said Tanguy Seiwart, an assistant professor of medicine and associate leader of the head and neck cancer [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-06-11T09:08:47-07:00June, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Factors linked with better survival in oral cancer identified

Source: www.cancertherapyadvisor.com Author: staff Factors associated with improved survival in oral cavity squamous cell cancer (OCSCC) include neck dissection and treatment at academic or research institutions, according to a study published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Alexander L. Luryi, from the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and colleagues analyzed correlations between treatment variables and survival in patients with stages I and II OCSCC. Data were included for 6,830 patients. The researchers found that five-year survival was 69.7 percent. Treatment factors that correlated with improved survival on univariate analysis included treatment at academic or research institutions, no radiation therapy, no chemotherapy, and negative margins (all P < 0.001). Improved survival was also seen in association with neck dissection (P = 0.001). Treatment at academic or research institutions correlated with increased likelihood of receiving neck dissection and decreased likelihood of receiving radiation therapy or having positive margins. Neck dissection and treatment at academic or research institutions correlated with improved survival on multivariate analysis (hazard ratios, 0.85 and 0.88, respectively), while compromised survival was seen for positive margins, insurance through Medicare, and adjuvant radiation therapy or chemotherapy (hazard ratios, 1.27, 1.45, 1.31, and 1.34, respectively). "Overall survival for early OCSCC varies with demographic and tumor characteristics but also varies with treatment and system factors, which may represent targets for improving outcomes in this disease," the authors write. Reference Luryi, Alexander L., BS, et al. "Treatment Factors Associated With Survival in Early-Stage Oral Cavity Cancer: Analysis of 6830 Cases [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-05-16T18:45:14-07:00May, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Second-line afatinib shows promise

Source: www.nature.com Author: David Killock Patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma and disease progression after first-line platinum-based chemotherapy have a dismal prognosis. There is no standard second-line therapy; however, afatinib, an irreversible inhibitor of HER family kinases, has shown efficacy in this setting. The LUX-Head & Neck 1 phase III trial randomly assigned patients to afatinib (n = 322) or methotrexate (n = 161) therapy. Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 2.6 months with afatinib versus 1.7 months (P = 0.03). “The study was also powered to detect a difference in overall survival, which was not significantly improved,” explains lead author Jean-Pascal Machiels, “however, patient-reported outcomes were better with afatinib.” Afatinib was associated with delayed deterioration of global health status, less pain, and improved swallowing, potentially related to the prolonged PFS, compared with methotrexate. Furthermore, afatinib toxicity was manageable and deemed favourable to that of methotrexate. The patients were unselected for disease subtype, ~60% had received prior anti-EGFR antibody therapy, and 51% received further lines of treatment, possibly diluting the treatment effect of afatinib acheter levitra en ligne. Notably, patients with human papilloma virus (p16)-negative non-oropharyngeal cancer and local recurrence (rather than metastasis), who had not previously received an anti-EGFR antibody seemed to derive the most benefit in preplanned subgroup analyses. Machiels concludes, “Afatinib has some activity in head and neck cancer, but we need to better understand which patients will benefit from this therapy.” References Machiels, J.-P. H. et al. Afatinib versus methotrexate as second-line treatment [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-05-06T14:13:24-07:00May, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Laser Treatment Halts Oral Mucositis in Its Tracks

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Fran Lowry Spa-like treatment with a cool, low-level laser, similar to that use for wrinkles, vanquishes oral mucositis, one of the most debilitating toxicities of cancer therapy. "I have been an oncology nurse for over 25 years, and in those 25 years, there has been nothing that helps prevent or is effective against the treatment for oral mucositis, until now," said Annette Quinn, RN, MSN, from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. "Patients say they rank it higher than nausea and vomiting when it comes to adverse side effects, especially because we have good medications to control nausea and vomiting. But the low-level laser works better than we could have hoped," Quinn told Medscape Medical News. She presented results from a pilot project at the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) 40th Annual Congress in Orlando, Florida. Oral mucositis affects virtually all head and neck cancer patients undergoing chemo and radiation therapy, and about 75% to 100% of patients undergoing stem cell transplantation with whole-body irradiation experience some degree of oral mucositis. Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) has been used to treat oral mucositis for a decade in Europe and South America, but it has not made its way to the United States because there is no mechanism for reimbursement, Quinn reported. She hopes this study will change that. "Reimbursement is the main obstacle to its use in the United States, but for this study, I was able to secure the treatment [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-05-04T10:29:44-07:00May, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Green tea polyphenol helps kill oral cancer cells by destroying mitochondria

Source: www.medicaldaily.com Author: Chris Weller First it targeted pancreatic cancer. Now it’s moved onto oral cancer. A new study from Penn State University shows the main antioxidant in green tea, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), helps kill cancer cells through the destruction of the cells’ mitochondria. While highly effective at eradicating cancer cells, chemotherapy is quickly falling out of practice with doctors who seek targeted treatments. Instead of getting rid of just the harmful cells, chemo attacks healthy cells, which are often found in the hair and the intestines, resulting in the characteristic hair loss and frequent immune system-related illness. “You don’t see these sorts of side effects with green tea consumption,” said Joshua Lambert, associate professor of food science at Penn State, in a press release. Lambert and his colleagues carried out their study by looking at cell cultures, which they injected with the same amount of EGCG a person would normally have in her saliva after chewing green tea-flavored gum. They saw a number of promising reactions. “It looks like EGCG causes the formation of reactive oxygen species in cancer cells, which damages the mitochondria, and the mitochondria responds by making more reactive oxygen species,” Lambert explained. Over time, the mitochondria lose even more of its defenses with a breakdown in the expression of antioxidant genes. In their weakened state the cancer cells eventually succumb to EGCG in full, and they die. This isn’t the first time EGCG revealed its cancer-killing power. In May of last year, scientists from the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-30T10:34:12-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Cure Possible for Some HPV-Positive Oropharyngeal Cancers

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Fran Lowry In a subset of patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer, the goal of achieving a "cure" is a realistic one, even in patients who have limited distant metastases, a prospective study has shown. Of the patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer and distant metastases, 10% survived more than 2 years after intensive treatment, which the researchers defined as a cure. The study was presented at the 5th International Conference on Innovative Approaches in Head and Neck Oncology (ICHNO) in Nice, France. The research was praised by Jean Bourhis, MD, head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Centre Hospitalier Université Vaudois in Lucerne, Switzerland, and cochair of the ICHNO conference scientific committee. "This important piece of research adds substantially to what we know about the role and the importance of the human papillomavirus in oropharyngeal cancers and gives real hope of improvement in both diagnosis and treatment to those who are affected by the condition," he said in a statement. This study, from a world-leading group of head and neck cancer experts, is very interesting, and related to relevant clinical and interdisciplinary questions," said Daniel Zips, MD, professor of radiation oncology at the University of Tübingen in Germany. "HPV status is also important for the management of metastatic disease," he told Medscape Medical News. He agrees that for some patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, using the researchers' definition, a cure is possible. "I also agree that the results from this study might begin to change [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-12T07:00:10-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Study finds how T cells cause inflammation with oral candidiasis

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: Donna Domino, Features Editor Ohio dental researchers have found a method to study how T cells cause inflammation during oral candidiasis infections, according to a new study in the Journal of Visualized Experiments (February 18, 2015). The discovery could lead to new therapies or drugs that may improve the functioning of weakened immune systems. Pushpa Pandiyan, PhD, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve School of Dental Medicine, and colleagues worked on mice to find a new way to model how T cells, the white blood cells critical for the body's immune system, cause inflammation. Pandiyan's previous work focused on isolating different types of oral T cells for study. In the latest study, the researchers injected T cells into genetically engineered immunodeficient mice to test how the cells function when fighting Candida albicans, a fungus found in about 60% of the population but controlled by a functioning immune system. The infection becomes a particular health problem for people with the HIV/AIDS infection, cancer patients with immune systems weakened by chemotherapy, or those born with no immune defenses. The researchers investigated how IL-17a (T helper 17, or Th17 cells, a type of T cells that secrete a cytokine) and T regulatory cells (Tregs) controlled the fungal infection and inflammation, respectively. "Although Th17 cells are required for antifungal immunity, uncontrolled Th17 cells have been implicated with such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, lupus, psoriasis, cancers, and irritable bowel disease," Pandiyan said in a statement. The immunodeficient mice were infected with [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-03-12T06:24:36-07:00March, 2015|Oral Cancer News|