human papillomavirus – Page 18

Experts warn of epidemic of head and neck tumors caused by sexually-transmitted HPV infections and obesity

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk Author: staff While cancer rates continue to drop, two new increasingly common causes of cancer could lead to an epidemic of head and neck cancer, experts warn. Obesity and the human papillomavirus, or HPV, are the next wave of cancer threats, according to a report released Monday with data from the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. Baby boomers already infected with HPV will likely develop cancers from the virus in coming years and the youger generation is not being vaccinated against it at anything close to the recommended rate. And a third of cancer cases have been linked to obesity, which is a growing health concern with little done to combat it. The report was published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. From 2000 to 2009 cancer death rates dropped steadily by 1.8 per cent among children and men and 1.4 per cent among women. Cancer diagnosis rates were stable for women, dipped slightly among men, and went up a tiny 0.6 per cent among children under 14. 'The fact that people are not dying of cancer is clear evidence of progress,' Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society told MSNBC. 'But could have a much lower death rate from cancer if we simply got serious about doing all the things that work. 'Over the next 10 years, a combination of high caloric intake and low physical activity [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-01-10T09:52:16-07:00January, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Study to assess lubricant that stops HPV transmission

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff A new study at McGill University will test the ability of a personal lubricant with a special form of carrageenan gel to prevent the transmission of human papillomavirus (HPV). The large-scale, double-blind human trial is called CATCH, an acronym for Carrageenan-gel Against Transmission of Cervical HPV, and will involve tracking HPV infections in more than 400 female volunteers for a one-year period. Divine 9, a carrageenan-based personal lubricant from the company Divine, was the only personal lubricant selected for the trial due to earlier laboratory studies by the National Cancer Institute that showed it to be a strong inhibitor of HPV transmission, according to the firm. Oropharyngeal cancer is the second-most diagnosed of cancers associated with HPV, according to a reportlast year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Approximately 26,000 new cancers attributable to HPV occur each year: 18,000 among females and 8,000 among males, including an estimated 11,500 cervical cancers and 7,400 oropharyngeal cancers, the CDC found.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-01-10T09:37:54-07:00January, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

HPV-related cancers on the rise

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: Drbicuspid staff The rising incidence of cancers associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) shows a need to increase HPV vaccination coverage levels, according to a report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (January 7, 2013). Despite the decline in cancer death rates in the U.S., the rate of HPV-associated cancers has increased, the report noted. The American Cancer Society (ACS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries annually provide updates on trends in cancer incidence and death rates in the U.S. This year's report highlighted trends in incidence rates for HPV-associated cancers and HPV vaccination coverage levels. Two HPV vaccines (bivalent and quadrivalent) have been shown to protect against most cervical cancers in women and one vaccine (quadrivalent) also protects against genital warts and cancers of the anus, vagina, and vulva. However, the report had no data available on the vaccine's efficacy for preventing HPV-associated cancers of the oropharynx. To assess trends in HPV-associated cancer incidence rates and HPV vaccination coverage levels, ACS researchers looked at trends in age-standardized incidence and death rates for all cancers combined and for the leading cancers among men and women. They also analyzed HPV vaccination coverage levels during 2008 and 2010. Nationally, 32% of females ages 13 to 17 years received three doses of the HPV vaccine in 2010, showing the necessity for increased efforts to increase HPV vaccination coverage, the report said. HPV vaccination efforts should [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-01-10T09:28:54-07:00January, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

HPV alters oral-cancer expectations

Source: www.dispatch.com Author: staff Demographics are important to physicians. Demographics help guide us toward more-likely and less-likely diagnoses in patients.In their most basic form, they mean we are surprised when we learn that the 90-year-old woman with hand pain suffered the injury while boxing. On the other hand, demographics are why a doctor tells the overweight man with a history of hypertension that he is “a heart attack waiting to happen.”Most disease processes can be characterized by a typical patient and are based on age, gender and sometimes ethnicity or socio-economic class. This has long been the case with oral-cancer cases. Most physicians have an idea of a typical oral-cancer patient. We envision an older, male patient with few teeth following a lifetime of poor oral health. They generally have lower income and are lifelong smokers. That’s why the tonsillar-cancer patient was such a surprise to me. He was 34, upper-middle class and did not smoke or drink. He had recently undergone surgery to remove his tonsils and a good portion of the back of his throat. He had come into the emergency department that day because he was having difficulty breathing and swallowing. When I walked into the room, he was sitting on a gurney and drooling into a garbage can that he kept between his knees. The skin around his neck looked swollen and tight, leaving me to imagine how much swelling there was in the back of his throat.His surgery had been six days earlier, and he [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-12-31T12:29:13-07:00December, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

New research reveals genetic mutations of HNC

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff New findings regarding the genetic mutations that cause head and neck cancer (HNC) may lead to new therapies, according to collaborative research presented in November at the 2012 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium in New York City. Aaron Tward, MD, PhD, and colleagues analyzed tumor samples provided by the University of Pittsburgh from 92 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), according to an article on onclive.com. Patient samples were chosen to reflect the normal distribution of patients with these cancers -- that is, mostly men and smokers, noted Dr. Tward. Of these patients, 89% reported a history of tobacco use and 79% alcohol use; 14% of all tumors and 53% of oropharyngeal tumors were found to be positive for human papillomavirus (HPV). Tumor sites also were selected to be roughly representative of the general HNSCC patient population -- that is, most were oral cavity cancers, followed by a substantial proportion of oropharynx cancer samples and a few from patients with hypopharyngeal or laryngeal tumors. Investigators used hybrid capture sequencing to compare tumor tissue and nontumor tissue from the same patient. They also compared the total number of mutations in the HNSCC samples with samples from previous tumor studies. The analysis yielded a large number of mutations. For example, 5,000 genes had at least one mutation, and 1,300 had at least two, the researchers reported. Dr. Tward emphasized, however, that most of these are not implicated either in promoting or maintaining the cancer. He said [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-12-31T12:21:03-07:00December, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Searching for new pathways and treatments for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Source: www.onclive.com Author: Lauren M. Green Scientists now know a lot more about the genetic landscape of head and neck cancer and hope that eventually this knowledge will lead the way to new therapies, according to Aaron D. Tward, MD, PhD, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tward described findings of recent collaborative research on the topic at the 2012 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium. For this research, Tward, also with the Department of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School and a clinical fellow in those specialties at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary in Boston, and colleagues analyzed tumor samples provided by the University of Pittsburgh from 92 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). The samples were chosen to be reflective of the normal distribution of patients with these cancers, that is, “mostly men and mostly smokers,” noted Tward. Of these patients, 89% reported a history of tobacco use and 79% alcohol use; 14% of all tumors and 53% of oropharyngeal tumors were found to be positive for human papillomavirus. Tumor sites also were selected so as to be roughly representative of the general HNSCC patient population; thus, most were oral cavity cancers, followed by a substantial proportion of oropharynx cancer samples, and a few from patients with hypopharyngeal or laryngeal tumors, Tward explained. Investigators used hybrid capture sequencing to compare tumor tissue with nontumor tissue from the same individual. They also compared the total number of mutations in the HNSCC samples [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-12-23T08:22:47-07:00December, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine does not encourage teen sex

Source: wtkr.com Author: CNN staff There’s been a lot of controversy over the HPV vaccine. Because Gardasil is designed to protect young people against human papillomavirus, a common sexually transmitted disease, some people believe the inoculation gives teens the go-ahead to have sex. Researchers are finding that’s not the case. HPV is known to be the cause of a number of illnesses, including mouth and throat cancer, genital warts and cervical cancer. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that all girls aged 11 and 12 receive the HPV vaccine to protect themselves. The American Academy of Pediatrics has also advised that girls and boys at that age be given the shot to fight the virus strain. But according to a new Kaiser Permanete/Emory University study published in this week’s edition of the journal Pediatrics, the vaccine has yet to be embraced by the general public. By 2010, fewer than half of girls eligible for the vaccine had received even one dose. Investigators believe that may be in part because some people who oppose the vaccine wrongly believe that it also protects against pregnancy and other sexually transmitted diseases, which would open the door for pre-teens to engage in sexual activity at an early age. The study finds that vaccinating children at ages 11 and 12 does not increase sexual activity in young girls. Researchers looked at the number of pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and contraceptive use in more than 1,300 pre-teen girls who received the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-10-16T13:31:30-07:00October, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Studies question value of certain HNC biomarkers

Source: Dr.Biscuspid.com September 19, 2012 -- Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA positivity alone, particularly when assessed using polymerase chain reaction methods, is a poor biomarker for HPV-driven head and neck cancers (HNCs), according to two studies published in Cancer Research (September 18, 2012). These studies identified alternative potential markers, including viral load, viral gene expression, and the evaluation of HPV DNA in combination with certain HPV assays. Prior research has established that HPV is a cause of some head and neck cancers, including oropharyngeal cancer, and that patients with HPV-associated disease tend to have a better clinical outcome. Consequently, the proper assessment of the clinical status of individual tumors has become a goal of clinicians treating this disease because HPV at the tumor site does not indicate causal involvement in the cancer. In the first study, Dana Holzinger, PhD, of the division of genome modifications and carcinogenesis at the German Cancer Research Center, and colleagues analyzed the potential of direct and indirect HPV markers to identify patients with HPV-driven tumors. They analyzed 199 oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma specimens for HPV DNA, viral load, RNA expression patterns seen in cervical carcinomas, and the p16 protein. They found that the cervical cancer RNA expression pattern and viral load were associated with the lowest risk for death from oropharyngeal cancer. In contrast, a weaker association was found for samples that were HPV DNA-positive or that expressed the p16 protein. "We showed that high viral load and a cancer-specific pattern of viral gene expression are [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-09-28T13:42:14-07:00September, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Oropharyngeal cancer patients with HPV have a more robust response to radiation therapy

Source: Eurekalert.org (SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis cancer researchers have discovered significant differences in radiation-therapy response among patients with oropharyngeal cancer depending on whether they carry the human papillomavirus (HPV), a common sexually transmitted virus. The findings, published online today in The Laryngoscope Journal, could lead to more individualized radiation treatment regimens, which for many patients with HPV could be shorter and potentially less toxic. HPV-related cancers of the oropharynx (the region of the throat between the soft palate and the epiglottis, including the tonsils, base of tongue and uvula) have steadily increased in recent years, according to the National Cancer Institute, especially among men. At the same time, the incidence of oropharyngeal cancers related to other causes, such as smoking or alcohol consumption, is declining. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States; it can spread through direct skin-to-skin contact during vaginal, anal and oral sex. The UC Davis study, conducted by Allen Chen, associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Radiation Oncology, examined patterns of tumor reduction during radiation treatment in two otherwise similar groups of patients with oropharyngeal cancer: those who tested positive for HPV and those who tested negative for the virus. None of the HPV patients in the study was a smoker, a leading risk factor for the disease. Chen used CT scans acquired during image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) and endoscopy (a tube with a small camera) to capture 3D images of the patients' tumors and monitor their treatment progress. [...]

Charlotte Parker2012-09-27T10:38:35-07:00September, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

DNA alone inadequate to identify HPV-related cancers

Source: www.oncologypractice.com Author: Mary Ann Moon Testing for the presence of human papillomavirus DNA alone, especially using polymerase chain reaction methods, is not adequate to identify which head and neck squamous cell carcinomas are caused by the virus, according to two studies published online Sept. 18 in Cancer Research. Identifying HPV-driven malignancies is important because they respond better to treatment and have better outcomes than those unrelated to HPV infection. Indeed, treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) may soon be guided by the tumor’s HPV status, since trials are now underway to determine whether de-escalation of chemo- and radiotherapy is safe and effective in such patients. At present, however, the biomarkers that are best suited to making this identification are unclear. Case Series Assesses Biomarkers In the first study, researchers assessed the usefulness of four biomarkers in determining which HNSCCs in a case series were driven by HPV. They began by examining fresh-frozen tumor biopsy samples from 199 German adults diagnosed as having oropharyngeal squamous cell cancer between 1990 and 2008. The four biomarkers were HPV-16 viral load, viral oncogene RNA (E6 and E7), p16INK4a, and RNA patterns similar to those characteristic of cervical carcinomas (CxCa RNA), said Dr. Dana Holzinger of the German Cancer Research Center at Heidelberg (Germany) University and her associates. The simple presence of HPV DNA in a tumor sample was found to be a poor indicator of prognosis, likely because it often signaled past HPV infections or recent oral exposure, rather than [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-09-24T13:36:21-07:00September, 2012|Oral Cancer News|