head and neck cancer

Four Ways Katie Couric Stacked The Deck Against Gardasil

Source: ForbesPublished: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 This afternoon, Katie Couric ran a long segment on her daytime talk show, Katie, about what she called the “controversy” over the vaccines against human papilloma virus, or HPV, an infection that causes cervical, throat, penile, and anal cancers. She featured one mother who says that Gardasil, the HPV vaccine made by Merck , killed her daughter, and a young woman, seated with her mother, who said that Gardasil had caused years of illness that made her think she might die. (GlaxoSmithKline GSK +0.15% makes another HPV vaccine, Cervarix, that is less commonly used in the U.S.) Alongside those stories, Couric also featured two medical experts: Dr. Diane Harper, the chair of family and geriatric medicine at the University of Louisville, who helped test Gardasil but has since argued that the vaccine has been over-marketed and its benefits oversold; and Mallika Marshall, a Harvard Medical School doctor who is Couric’s in-house medical correspondent. Marshall defended the vaccine; strangely, only her arguments appear on the show’s Web site. Despite the attempt at balance, I think most viewers will be left with the impression that the vaccine is dangerous and that its benefits don’t outweigh its risks – a conclusion that is not shared by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, or the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Here’s how Couric stacked the deck against the HPV vaccine: 1. By downplaying the effectiveness of [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-12-05T13:18:37-07:00December, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Can Damage Genes and Chromosomes Directly, Whole-Genome Sequencing Study Shows

Press release from the James Cancer Center COLUMBUS, Ohio – The virus that causes cervical, head and neck, anal and other cancers can damage chromosomes and genes where it inserts its DNA into human DNA, according to a new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James). It’s long been known that cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV) produce two viral proteins, called E6 and E7, which are essential for the development of cancer. However, they are not sufficient to cause cancer. Additional alterations in host-cell genes are necessary for cancer to develop. Here, scientists identified a new mechanism by which HPV may damage host DNA directly and contribute to cancer development. Published in the journal Genome Research, this laboratory study used whole-genome sequencing to investigate the relationship between the HPV and host genomes in human cancers. “Our sequencing data showed in vivid detail that HPV can damage host-cell genes and chromosomes at sites of viral insertion,” says co-senior author David Symer, MD, PhD, assistant professor of molecular virology, immunology and medical genetics at the OSUCCC – James. “HPV can act like a tornado hitting the genome, disrupting and rearranging nearby host-cell genes,” Symer explains. “This can lead to overexpression of cancer-causing genes in some cases, or it can disrupt protective tumor-suppressor genes in others. Both kinds of damage likely promote the development of cancer.” “We observed fragments of the [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-11-08T12:21:37-07:00November, 2013|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Head and Neck Cancers Increasingly Referred to Teaching Hospitals

Source: MedScape.comBy Will Boggs, MDPublished: September 9, 2013 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sep 09 - An increasing proportion of head and neck cancers is being treated at teaching hospitals and academic centers - which may be good news for patients, and bad news for the hospitals. "Higher volume centers end up doing more complex work," Dr. Eliot Abemayor from David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California told Reuters Health by email. "Since more specialized centers are doing this work, they cannot be held accountable to having poorer outcomes per se since the patients in general are the sickest and most complex." The care of patients with head and neck cancer is labor intensive and expensive, and over the past decade, a greater number of patients seem to be receiving care at teaching hospitals and academic institutions than at local or community-based institutions. In an effort to document this trend and its implications, Dr. Abemayor and Dr. Neil Bhattacharyya from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston used data from the Nationwide In-patient Sample for the calendar years 2000, 2005, and 2010, which included roughly 29,000, 33,500, and 37,500 inpatient hospital head and neck cancer stays, respectively. This trend represents an increase of approximately 29% over the three study years, the researchers note. These data demonstrated a significant increase in the proportion of stays for teaching hospitals, from 61.7% in 2005 to 79.8% in 2010 (p<0.001). At the same time, the number of admissions to medium- bed-size hospitals for head [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-09-17T14:11:44-07:00September, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Concerned About HPV-Related Cancer Rise, Researchers Advocate Boosting HPV Vaccination Rates

By: Anna AzvolinskySource: JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute Advance AccessPublished: August 29, 2013 Deaths from the major cancers—lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate—continue to decline, a trend that started in the early 1990s. Cancer incidence is also declining, if slightly, for both sexes. That’s the good news from the annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, a joint research effort by the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (J Natl. Cancer Inst. 2013;105:175–201). But the study also shows an uptick in rates of anal and oropharyngeal cancer, a type of head and neck cancer related to infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV), in the 10-year period ending in 2009. Cancer of the oropharynx increased among white men and women (3.9% and 1.7%, respectively). Anal cancer also increased in both sexes, with the greatest increase among black men (5.6%) and white women (3.7%). Rates of vulvar cancer, another HPV-related cancer, also increased among women despite continued lower rates of cervical cancer. Researchers attribute this rise in HPV related cancers to more HPV infections. “We think that increases in oral–genital sexual practices and increasing number of sexual partners that occurred some 30 years ago as part of the sexual revolution may be implicated in part of the increase in cancer rates we are seeing today,” said Edgar P. Simard, Ph.D., M.P.H., senior epidemiologist of surveillance research. Although rates of HPV infection from three decades ago were not available in the joint report, a trend exists of men and women now in their 50s and 60s having the highest rates of both oropharyngeal and anal cancers. To directly relate HPV infection [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-09-03T14:10:57-07:00September, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

HPV Vaccine Found to Help with Cancers of Throat

Source: NY Times By: Donald G. McNeil Jr. A vaccine that protects women against cervical cancer also appears to protect them against throat cancers caused by oral sex, and presumably would protect men as well, according to a study released Thursday. Rates of this throat cancer have soared in the past 30 years, particularly among heterosexual middle-aged men. About 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers are now caused by sexually transmitted viruses, up from 16 percent in the 1980s. The epidemic made headlines last month when the actor Michael Douglas told a British newspaper that his throat cancer had come from performing oral sex. Oncologists have assumed that the human papillomavirus vaccine, which is used to prevent cervical cancer, would also prevent this other type of cancer, but this was the first study to provide evidence. “This is a very nice paper,” said Dr. Marshall R. Posner, medical director for head and neck cancer at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the study. “We expected this — that’s why we want everyone to vaccinate both boys and girls. But there’s been no proof.” The study, supported by the National Cancer Institute, found that Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, provided 93 percent protection against infection with the two types of human papillomavirus that cause most of the cancers. “We were surprised at how big the effect was,” said Dr. Rolando Herrero, head of prevention for the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-07-19T11:20:48-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Leaders in Dentistry: Dr. Ezra Cohen

Source: Dr. Bicuspid By: Donna Domino, Features Editor Date: July 17, 2013 May 21, 2013 — DrBicuspid.com is pleased to present the next installment of Leaders in Dentistry, a series of interviews with researchers, practitioners, and opinion leaders who are influencing the practice of dentistry. We spoke with Ezra Cohen, MD, an associate professor of medicine and the co-director of the head and neck cancer program at the University of Chicago, and the associate director for education at the university’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Cohen specializes in head and neck, thyroid, and salivary gland cancers, and is an expert in novel cancer therapies who has conducted extensive research in molecularly targeted agents in the treatment of these cancers. His research interests include discovering how cancers become resistant to existing treatments and overcoming these mechanisms and ways to combine radiotherapy with novel agents. Here Dr. Cohen discusses trends in the incidence, detection, and treatment of oral and head and neck cancers. DrBicuspid.com: What’s the significance of your recent finding that there may be five distinct subgroups of the human papillomavirus (HPV)? Dr. Cohen: The purpose of the research was trying to define molecular subgroups of head and neck cancer (HNC) to inform therapy and outcomes a lot more than we do now as defined by stage and anatomic site. We were taking advantage of a cohort of patients that we treated in a similar fashion at the University of Chicago with a chemotherapy regimen that we commonly use here. The patients [...]

Webmaster2013-07-19T07:48:02-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Radiation Treatment Breaks and Ulcerative Mucositis in Head and Neck Cancer

Source: The OncologistAuthors: Gregory Russo, Robert Haddad, Marshall Posnerb and Mitchell MachtayaReceived January 31, 2008.Accepted May 14, 2008.First published online in THE ONCOLOGIST Express on August 13, 2008. • Disclosure: The content of this article has been reviewed by independent peer reviewers to ensure that it is balanced, objective, and free from commercial bias. No financial relationships relevant to the content of this article have been disclosed by the authors, planners, independent peer reviewers, or staff managers of the article. Abstract Unplanned radiation treatment breaks and prolongation of the radiation treatment time are associated with lower survival and locoregional control rates when radiotherapy or concurrent chemoradiotherapy is used in the curative treatment of head and neck cancer. Treatment of head and neck cancer is intense, involving high-dose, continuous radiotherapy, and often adding chemotherapy to radiotherapy. As the intensity of treatment regimens has escalated in recent years, clinical outcomes generally have improved. However, more intensive therapy also increases the incidence of treatment-related toxicities, particularly those impacting the mucosal lining of the oral cavity, pharynx, and cervical esophagus, and results in varying degrees of ulcerative mucositis. Ulcerative mucositis is a root cause of unscheduled radiation treatment breaks, which prolongs the total radiation treatment time. Alterations in radiotherapy and chemotherapy, including the use of continuous (i.e., 7 days/week) radiotherapy to ensure constant negative proliferative pressure, may improve efficacy outcomes. However, these approaches also increase the incidence of ulcerative mucositis, thereby increasing the incidence of unplanned radiation treatment breaks. Conversely, the reduction of ulcerative [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-07-03T16:36:04-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Cessation of alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking and the reversal of head and neck cancer risk

Source: International Journal of EpidemiologyAccepted September 28, 2008 Abstract Background Quitting tobacco or alcohol use has been reported to reduce the head and neck cancer risk in previous studies. However, it is unclear how many years must pass following cessation of these habits before the risk is reduced, and whether the risk ultimately declines to the level of never smokers or never drinkers. Methods We pooled individual-level data from case–control studies in the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology Consortium. Data were available from 13 studies on drinking cessation (9167 cases and 12 593 controls), and from 17 studies on smoking cessation (12 040 cases and 16 884 controls). We estimated the effect of quitting smoking and drinking on the risk of head and neck cancer and its subsites, by calculating odds ratios (ORs) using logistic regression models. Results Quitting tobacco smoking for 1–4 years resulted in a head and neck cancer risk reduction [OR 0.70, confidence interval (CI) 0.61–0.81 compared with current smoking], with the risk reduction due to smoking cessation after ≥20 years (OR 0.23, CI 0.18–0.31), reaching the level of never smokers. For alcohol use, a beneficial effect on the risk of head and neck cancer was only observed after ≥20 years of quitting (OR 0.60, CI 0.40–0.89 compared with current drinking), reaching the level of never drinkers. Conclusions Our results support that cessation of tobacco smoking and cessation of alcohol drinking protect against the development of head and neck cancer. This news story was resourced by the [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-07-03T16:25:24-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Michael Douglas pleased that oral sex story raised public awareness

By Agence France-PresseTuesday, June 4, 2013 18:40 EDTSource: The Raw Story Michael Douglas said he would win a Nobel prize if he knew exactly what caused his throat cancer, in fresh comments Tuesday after a dispute with a British newspaper over an interview he gave. The “Fatal Attraction” star, whose spokesman already denied he blamed his throat cancer specifically on oral sex, also said that, regardless, he was happy to raise awareness about causes of the killer disease. “I never expected to become a poster boy for head and neck cancer,” Douglas said in comments issued by a representative. “But, if after what started out as trying to answer a couple of questions about the suspected sources of this disease results in opening up discussion and furthering public awareness, then I’ll stand by that.” In an interview with Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Douglas, who stars in the just-released biopic of flamboyant entertainer Liberace, “Behind The Candelabra,” said his cancer was caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). “Without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus,” he said, in comments the newspaper said amounted to blaming oral sex for his cancer. Douglas’s spokesman Allen Burry said Monday that the 68-year-old actor was talking in general, not personal terms. “This is not the cause of his cancer,” he said. On Tuesday, Douglas himself added: “Head and neck cancer can be caused by many things including [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-06-05T09:36:15-07:00June, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

ASCO: Actor’s Oral Sex Remarks May Aid HPV Prevention

By: Crystal Phend, Senior Staff WriterPublished: June 03, 2013Source: MedPage Today CHICAGO -- Actor Michael Douglas' apparent claim that he got throat cancer from human papillomavirus (HPV) contracted through oral sex may help aid prevention efforts, experts suggested. Douglas, now 68, was diagnosed with a "walnut-sized" stage IV tumor at the base of his tongue in 2010 after months of oral discomfort. His well-known tobacco and alcohol habits -- both risk factors for oropharyngeal cancers -- had been thought to be the cause, but he appeared to indicate otherwise in an interview appearing in British tabloid The Guardian yesterday. While one of his representatives has since challenged that interpretation of the interview, the spotlight on HPV as a cause of cancer should promote awareness of the need for HPV vaccination, head and neck cancer and HPV specialists contacted here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting said. "It's no surprise to physicians such as myself, because probably 80% of the tonsil and tongue cancers I see are related to HPV," Eric Moore, MD, an oropharyngeal cancer specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., noted in an interview with MedPage Today. Most adults become exposed to the virus at some point but clear it like any other infection. Those who become chronically infected are at elevated risk of cervical, anal, and head and neck cancers, particularly from subtype 16. The tonsils and base of tongue are the predominant areas affected in the head and neck because of the [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-06-04T11:35:27-07:00June, 2013|Oral Cancer News|