HPV positive

Tobacco use linked to worse outcomes In HPV-positive head and neck cancer, U-M study finds

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: Nicole Fawcett, University of Michigan Health System Patients with head and neck cancer linked to high risk human papillomavirus, or HPV, have worse outcomes if they are current or former tobacco users, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. High-risk HPVs are the same viruses that are associated with cancers of the uterine cervix. The research suggests that current or former tobacco users may need a more aggressive treatment regimen than patients who have never used tobacco. Past research shows that HPV-positive head and neck cancers tend to be more responsive to current treatments and these patients overall tend to have better outcomes than patients with HPV-negative tumors. However, the new study found that current tobacco users with HPV-positive tumors were five times more likely to have their cancer recur. Even former smokers had an increased risk of recurrence. "Because the effect of HPV is so strong in giving a very good prognostic picture, we were surprised to find that smoking remained a huge issue, and it actually affected the outcome in patients who smoked," says senior study author Thomas Carey, Ph.D., professor of otolaryngology and pharmacology, and co-director of the Head and Neck Oncology Program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. Results of the study appear in the Feb. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. The study looked at 124 patients with advanced oropharyngeal cancer, which is cancer of the tonsils or the base of the tongue. Most [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-17T21:51:15-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

HPV-associated base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma incidence increasing in Sweden

Source: www.hemonctoday.com Author: staff The incidence for base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma increased significantly in Sweden between 1998 and 2007, and by 2007, more than 80% of these cases were HPV-positive. Various studies during the past 20 years have indicated that HPV is a risk factor for oropharyngeal cancer. However, few studies have assessed the specific sub-sites of the oropharynx. In this study, researchers assessed the increased incidence of base of tongue cancer and the association of HPV in 109 patients diagnosed with base of tongue cancer between 1998 and 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden. The researchers obtained diagnostic pretreatment paraffin-embedded tumor biopsies from 95 patients. DNA samples were obtained from 30-mcm paraffin-embedded base of tongue biopsy slices. Age at diagnosis ranged from 41 to 85 years. From 1970 to 2007, the age-standardized incidence of base of tongue squamous cell carcinoma increased from 0.15 per 100,000 person-years between 1970 and 1974 to 0.47 per 100,000 person-years between 2005 and 2007. HPV DNA was found in 75% of base of tongue cancer cases during this time. Of the HPV-positive tumors, 86% were HPV-16–positive and seven were HPV-33–positive. During the study period, the incidence of HPV-positive base of tongue cancers persistently increased (see chart). A significant increase was found in the proportion of HPV-positive cancer between 1998 and 2001 compared with 2004 and 2007 (58% vs. 84%; P<.05). When compared with patients with HPV-negative tumors, patients with HPV-positive tumors were likely to be stage IV (P<.02) and had less advanced T-stage (P<.05 [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-05T22:20:41-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Viral infection may explain racial differences in oral cancer death rates

Source: nytimes.com Author: Roni Caryn Rabin African-American patients with head and neck cancers die earlier than whites, and researchers say they have made a breakthrough in understanding the underlying reasons for the racial gap. After scientists at the University of Maryland noticed that whites treated at their hospital for squamous cell head and neck cancers lived more than twice as long as black patients who received the same care at their hospital, they took a closer look. Further analysis revealed that the gap was almost entirely due to differences in survival among patients with cancer of the throat and tonsils, or oropharyngeal cancer. The scientists were also involved in analyzing specimens of head and neck tumors taken from participants in a treatment trial called the TAX 324 study, to see how many tumors were linked to the human papillomavirus, the same HPV-16 virus that has been linked to cervical cancer. The results were striking: they found that patients whose tumors were HPV-positive did much better after treatment than patients who were negative for the virus. Yet while half of the throat cancer patients had HPV-positive tumors, 98 percent of the positive tumors were from white patients, while a vast majority of black patients had HPV-negative tumors. “There was no difference in the survival between black and white patients in the TAX 324 trials, if you subtracted out the HPV-positive patients,” said Dr. Kevin Cullen, the senior author of a paper published online by the journal Cancer Prevention Research. White patients [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-01T14:24:03-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Oral sex cause of throat cancer rise

Source: webmd.com Author: Salynn Boyles Changing sexual practices have led to a dramatic rise in throat cancer in the United States over the past two decades, and experts say they fear an epidemic of the disease. The comments were made Wednesday at a news conference held by the American Association for Cancer Research to discuss research into the role of the sexually transmitted human papilloma virus ( HPV) in head and neck cancer. Increasing rates of HPV infection, spread through oral sex, is largely driving the rapid rise in oropharyngeal cancers, which include tumors of the throat, tonsils, and base of the tongue, said Scott Lippman, MD, who chairs the thoracic department at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Studies of oropharyngeal tumor tissue stored 20 years ago show that only around 20% are HPV positive, Lippman said. Today it is estimated that 60% of patients are infected with the virus. “The percentage of oropharyngeal cancers that are HPV positive is much higher now than it was 20 years ago,” he said. “This is a real trend, and that is why there is concern of an epidemic given that fact that oropharyngeal cancer is increasing at an alarming rate.” Changing Face of Throat Cancer Smoking and alcohol abuse were once considered the only major risk factors for these cancers, but this is no longer the case. American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD, said as many as half of the oropharyngeal cancers diagnosed today appear to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-07-30T19:16:32-07:00July, 2009|Oral Cancer News|