HPV positive – Page 2 – Oral Cancer News

Facing the facts: HPV-associated head and neck cancers get a second look

Source: www.curetoday.com Author: Charlotte Huff Kevin Pruyne knew he didn’t fit the stereotype of a hard drinker or heavy smoker who one day develops an oral cancer. The 52-year-old mechanic had been working a three-week stint in a remote section of northern Alaska, repairing trucks on an oil field, when he noticed a hard lump beneath his jaw while shaving. For nearly three months, as Pruyne was prescribed antibiotics for a possible infection and then later shuttled between physician specialists, he kept hearing the same thing: the lump could not be cancer. Pruyne only occasionally consumed alcohol and had never smoked. His wife, Kathy, began researching her husband’s symptoms, which included repetitive throat clearing, a nagging sensation that something was lodged in his throat and ringing in his ears. And the lump, which looked like the top half of an egg, felt solid to the touch. This wasn’t some inflamed lymph node from a lingering head cold, Kathy Pruyne says. “He had every symptom [of cancer], but nobody would listen to me.” Pruyne received a diagnosis of stage 4 oral cancer, which started with a tumor at the base of his tongue. He had already begun chemotherapy when he learned that researchers had discovered an association between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and increasing rates of oropharyngeal cancers. He asked that his tissue be tested; the results came back positive. Pruyne says he wanted to know whether his cancer was caused by HPV because “the prognosis is considerably better with HPV-positive cancer.” [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-07-03T17:34:09-07:00July, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Study links gum disease, HPV-status of head and neck cancer

Source: www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter Author: Sara R. Saldi Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), once almost exclusively associated with cancer of the cervix, is now linked to head and neck cancer. Furthermore, according to a new UB study just published in the Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, a JAMA publication, gum disease is associated with increased odds of tumors being HPV-positive. Primary investigator Mine Tezal, assistant professor of oral biology in the School of Dental Medicine, and a team of scientists from UB evaluated data from 124 patients diagnosed with primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) between 1999 and 2007. “The aim of the study was to test the presence of periodontitis, a persistent inflammatory process and HPV-status of HNSCC,” Tezal says. Of the 124 tumor samples Tezal and her team studied, 50 were positive for HPV-16 DNA and that subjects with HPV-positive tumors had a significantly higher severity of periodontitis when compared to subjects with HPV-negative tumors. According to the National Cancer Institute, there has been a steady increase in the prevalence of oropharyngeal cancers in the U.S. since 1973. This is despite the significant decline in tobacco use since 1965, a year after the U.S. Surgeon General issued the landmark Report on Smoking and Health. Tezal notes that this increase has mainly been attributed to oral HPV infection. Understanding the natural history of the oral HPV infection and targeting factors associated not only with its acquisition but also with its persistence, says Tezal, will lead to more effective strategies, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-06-22T21:24:45-07:00June, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Advaxis recruiting for HPV+ head and neck cancer trial

Source: www.cancertreatment.net Author: Ross Bonander Advaxis is announcing the enrollment of patients into the REALISTIC Phase I/II trial sponsored by Cancer Research UK to evaluate ADXS-HPV for the treatment of HPV-positive head and neck cancer. HPV has been linked to as many as seventy percent of all head and neck cancers. ADXS-HPV is a next-generation immunotherapy that acts as a therapeutic vaccine and is being tested in trials against HPV-associated diseases, including cervical cancers. Cancer Research UK assumes all patient costs. Advaxis seeks to recruit 45 patients. The REALISTIC trial is being carried out at the Aintree Hospital at the University of Liverpool, the Royal Marsden Hospital at the University of London, and the Cardiff Hospital at the University of Wales. Qualified patients will have already received treatment for head and neck cancer, either surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or a combination of treatments. Head and neck cancers account for roughly three percent of all cancers in the US, according to the American Cancer Society. They are more commonly diagnosed in men than women, and while they are traditionally linked to smoking and to alcohol consumption, HPV-related oropharyngeal cancers are on the rise among white males under 50 years of age. "We are pleased to be working with an internationally-renowned oncology group to further expand the ADXS-HPV clinical development program to another HPV-associated tumor type," said Advaxis Chairman & CEO Thomas A. Moore. "Through this collaboration, we hope that our proprietary technology will be able to offer a new treatment option to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-05-24T14:21:07-07:00May, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

New indicator may help Identify patients with increased risk from throat cancer

Source: www.onclive.com Author: staff Patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma who had "matted" lymph nodes -- nodes that are connected together -- are more likely to metastasize than those without matted lymph nodes, according to a study published online in the journal Head & Neck. Metastases account for about 45% of the deaths among patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma, wrote Douglas B. Chepeha, MD, MPH, an associate professor of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. "Our findings may help doctors identify patients who are at higher risk for having their cancer metastasize and who would benefit from additional systemic therapy," he said, adding that the opposite was also true -- those without matted nodes might benefit from reducing therapy. The researchers tracked 78 patients who were part of a clinical trial evaluating 2 cancer drugs with intensity-modulated radiation therapy. All of the treatment-naive patients had stage III-IV squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx. Sixteen of the 78 patients had matted nodes. They found that patients with matted nodes had a 69% survival rate over 3 years, compared with 94% for patients without matted nodes. The risk was independent of other prognostic factors, such as the patient's history of smoking, alcohol use, or human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Matted nodes appear to be an especially strong indicator of increased risk among patients who are HPV-positive. However, HPVpositive patients had better overall outcomes than HPV-negative patients did. The patients with the best outcomes were HPV-positive [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-03-19T07:12:42-07:00March, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

HPV links to throat cancer in males

Source: www.thesimmonsvoice.com Author: Emese Nemeth Whether it is your first year or you are returning to college, there are always emails and pamplets about immunizations. While some vaccines are mandatory for public safety and health, vaccines such as Gardasil (also known as Silgard) for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) are not. While some may argue that it is relatively new vaccine and side effects may be uncertain, the benefits are starting to out-weigh the risks. Gardasil was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2006 to vaccinate against the four most common strains of HPV: types 6, 11, 16 and 18. Seventy percent of cervical cancer is caused by types 16 and 18. Types 16 and 18 are also known to cause HPV induced cancer of the anus, vulva, vagina and penis. The other two types, 6 and 11 are known to cause ninety percent of genital wart cases. More recently, HPV has been linked to induce throat cancer, specifically, oropharyngeal cancer. The American Society of Clinical Oncology also believes that "the annual occurrence of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer among men will surpass that of cervical cancer among women by the year 2020." Why throat cancer is more prevalent in men is still unclear, but throat cancer still affects both sexes with 6,700 cases of HPV-positive oropharynx cancers in 2010. While cervical cancer is on the decline due to regular pap smears, throats are only examined due to pain or unusual symptoms. Although Gardasil does not claim to prevent throat [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-09-23T16:21:46-07:00September, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Men likely at greater risk for developing HPV-positive cancers

Source: curetoday.com Author: Jon Garinn A new analysis from the National Cancer Institute suggests that the number of HPV-positive oral cancers among men could rise significantly in the next decade, possibly surpassing HPV-positive cervical cancers among women. The genital human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 20 million Americans are currently infected and about 6 million are infected each year. Using population-based cancer registry data, the researchers found that between 1988 and 2004, oropharyngeal cancers related to HPV increased by 225 percent, with men accounting for the majority of cases. Relying on U.S. Census projections and age-period-cohort models, they projected a 27 percent rise in cases by 2020. More than 40 types of HPV are spread during genital, oral or anal sex with an infected partner—some are low-risk (wart-causing) while others are high-risk (cancer-causing). In most cases, the body’s own immune system gets rid of HPV within about two years of infection. But if the body cannot clear the infection, it can develop into several cancers, including oropharyngeal and cervical, which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Gardasil, the only approved vaccine for young men and women, is effective against two types of cancer-causing HPV and two types of wart-causing HPV. Cervarix is an HPV vaccine approved only for women.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-07-11T22:06:00-07:00July, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Finally, a selfish reason to get boys vaccinated for HPV

Source: www.slate.com Author: Kent Sepkowitz A vaccine that prevents cancer is the dream of just about every patient, doctor, and public health official. Therefore, hopes were quite high five years ago, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that causes almost all cases of cervical cancer. But despite its clear efficacy, the vaccine has been something of a dud. According to a 2008 survey, only 34 percent of the target crowd, girls aged 13 to 17 years, had received it. The reasons for the slow uptake relate to generic vaccine issues (cost, pain, distrust) as well as a particular discomfort with this one, dubbed the "sex vaccine" by many conservatives, who object to it on the grounds that it somehow promotes licentious behavior (as if it were possible to make teenagers any hornier). However, a new study presented at last week's annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncologists makes the vaccine look even more valuable. Though preliminary and still unpublished, these findings have the potential to finally shift the perception that HPV is a woman's problem and convince parents to get their boys vaccinated against the virus, too. The researchers make the most compelling case to date that HPV causes yet another malignancy—oropharyngeal cancer, a disease that affects men three times more often than women. (It's a subcategory of "oral" or "head and neck" cancer, which also predominantly affect men.) Their work appears to have [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-06-17T12:56:58-07:00June, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

HPV infection may be linked to poor head and neck cancer survival rates in African Americans

Source: www.aacr.org Author: staff American Association for Cancer Research Hosts Press Conference on New Study A groundbreaking study in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggests that having the human papillomavirus (HPV) improves survival in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Furthermore, African Americans had far less HPV infection than whites, which led to worse survival. "There is currently no consensus on why blacks fare worse with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck than whites, but this is the first clue that it may be biologic rather than related to issues of access, insurance or provider attitudes," said senior author Kevin Cullen, M.D., director of the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center and professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Cullen's research showed that median overall survival was more than threefold higher for whites (70.6 months) than for African Americans (20.9 months) who were treated with chemotherapy and radiation. When the researchers examined patients by HPV status, they found that HPV-negative patients had a median survival of 26.6 months, while the survival rate for HPV-positive patients could not be calculated because most were still alive. Overall, 4 percent of African American patients and 34 percent of white patients were HPV positive. Cullen said the survival difference was entirely due to HPV status, as survival rates were similar among HPV-negative patients. Scott Lippman, M.D., chair of the Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-01-21T06:28:27-07:00January, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

HPV is changing the face of head and neck cancers

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: Christen Cona In February, at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Chandler, Ariz., Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, professor and Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at The Ohio State University in Columbus, presented data that showed that the proportion of all head and neck squamous cell cancers that were of the oropharynx — which are most commonly HPV-positive cancers — increased from 18% in 1973 to 32% in 2005. In addition, studies from the United States, Europe, Denmark and Australia indicate that HPV-positive patients have a more than twofold increased cancer survival than HPV-negative patients, according to Gillison. With the rising incidence of HPV-related oropharynx cancers, it will soon be the predominant type of cancer in the oral or head and neck region, according to Andy Trotti, MD, director of radiation oncology clinical research, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, in Tampa, Fla. “We should be focusing on HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer because it will dominate the field of head and neck cancers for many years,” he said during an interview with HemOnc Today . “It is certainly an important population for which to continue to conduct research.” Because HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer is emerging as a distinct biological entity, the recent rise in incidence will significantly affect treatment, and prevention and screening techniques, essentially reshaping current clinical practice. Social change driving incidence In the analysis performed by Gillison and colleagues, trends demonstrated that change in the rates of head and neck cancers [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-06-27T10:24:39-07:00June, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

ASCO: Second study links HPV to mouth cancer outcomes

Source: www.medpagetoday.com/ Author: Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection predicts a better chance of survival in patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, researchers said. In a retrospective analysis of a major radiation therapy trial, more than four-fifths of patients whose tumors were HPV-positive were alive three years after treatment, according to Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, of Ohio State University in Columbus, and colleagues. In contrast, fewer than six of 10 patients with HPV-negative tumors were still alive at the three-year mark, Gillison and colleagues reported online in the New England Journal of Medicine, in an article released to coincide with a presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting here. The study follows a report earlier at the meeting that found a similar pattern among patients enrolled in a chemotherapy trial. The virus is, of course, well known to cause cervical cancer. The New England Journal study adds to the evidence that "HPV-positive oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma represents a distinct clinicopathological entity associated with a better prognosis than HPV-negative oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma," said Douglas Lowy, MD, of the NIH, and Karl Munger, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Writing in an accompanying editorial, Lowy and Munger argued that if the diseases are distinct, "their treatment or prevention might benefit from different approaches." One possibility, they said, would be to target HPV proteins to treat the disease in some patients, while prevention might involve vaccination against the virus. Gillison and colleagues looked at the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-06-07T16:09:05-07:00June, 2010|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|