human papillomavirus – Page 21

Biosciences aims to lower oral cancer mortality with simple screening test

Source: www.proactiveinvestors.com Author: Amanda Brandon Vigilant Biosciences is a privately held medical technology company based in Norcross, Georgia focused on improving healthcare products to improve patient care. Their most recent research efforts center on early oral cancer detection. In the United States, approximately 37,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer this year and its most common risk factor is exposure to the human papillomavirus (HPV). Nearly 40 percent of oral cancer patients will die within five years of diagnosis. The high mortality rate for oral cancer is due to late discovery of the malignancy. In its early stages, the disease can either present no symptoms or the symptoms are often mistaken for other conditions. VigilantBIO is currently trialing an easy-to-use, low-cost and noninvasive oral cancer screening product which tests the saliva (a very desirable biofluid). The patient and practitioners (e.g. dentists, hygienists, periodontists) benefit from the simplicity of the test – no venipuncture means higher test participation and no specialized staff is required to perform the test. In the oral clinical setting, this is ideal because it does not interfere with chair turnover ratio. In addition, test results can be delivered at the point of care. When oral cancer is detected early, patients experience an 80-90 percent survival rate. Combined with the lowered treatment cost (an estimated 36 percent) and easy-to-implement product for oral care practitioners, the early detection product appears to be a winner for all involved. With two clinical trials in process at the University of Miami, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-22T15:21:40-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

HPV vaccine myths put health, lives at risk, say health leaders: Airing the facts

Source: TheNationsHealth.org Vaccination rates for human papillomavirus are lagging for teens, and a complicated web of confusion and misinformation may be to blame, according to public health leaders. Several strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer, and two vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, have been shown conclusively to defend against those strains. The Food and Drug Administration recommended in 2006 that girls receive the vaccine before they become sexually active so that they are protected at the outset. In 2009, FDA approved the use of the vaccine for boys as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 6 million people in the U.S. become infected with HPV each year and each year about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, leading to about 4,000 deaths. Studies have shown the vaccine to be overwhelmingly safe, CDC said. As of June 2011, about 35 million doses of Gardasil had been distributed in the United States. CDC’s adverse event tracking mechanisms reported about 18,000 adverse events, 92 percent of which were nonserious events, such as fainting, swelling at the injection site and headache. Sixty-eight deaths were reported, but there is “no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine, and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination,” CDC said. And yet, fed perhaps by misinformation or squeamishness about the idea of their children becoming sexually active, some parents are opting not to vaccinate, and the vaccination rates are [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-01T12:41:51-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Lab at Hershey Medical Center identifies a virus that could kill cancer

Source: www.pennlive.com Author: Nick Malawskey, The Patriot-News This is not the kind of lab we picture when we think of world-changing science. It’s not the clean, spotless modern laboratories of television or movies. It’s a cluttered, workaday environment, where plastic test tubes rub shoulders with petri dishes and tubs of chemicals on busy shelves. The white board isn’t covered with the scrawl of complex mathematical formulas, but reminders of whose turn it is to buy the doughnuts. But it is here, on the fifth floor of the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, where Dr. Craig Meyers and his team might have conducted a miracle. What he and his lab claim discovery of is breathtaking in its simplicity. A common virus, omnipresent in the world. When it infects humans, it does no harm. But introduce it into certain kinds of tumors and the virus appears to go wild, liquefying every cancer cell it comes into contact with. It’s the type of discovery that could change the world. And like all great stories of scientific discovery, it begins with a moment of sublime serendipity, not unlike Isaac Newton nodding off beneath an apple tree. A Tiny Virus It’s one of the smallest, simplest viruses and yet adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV2, could be among the most important agents in modern medicine. That’s because it’s almost perfectly imperfect. For whatever reason, through its evolution, AAV2 developed what would, in most cases, be a dead end — it cannot easily reproduce. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-11-27T14:38:16-07:00November, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Why HPV vaccination of boys may be easier

Source: www.npr.org/blogs/health Author: Richard Knox When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a half-dozen years ago that preteen girls be vaccinated against human papillomavirus, two things happened. A lot of parents and some conservative groups were jarred by the idea of immunizing young girls against a sexually transmitted virus. And uptake of the vaccine has been poor — only about a third of 13- to 17-year-old girls have gotten the full three-shot series. Now, in the wake of a CDC expert panel's recommendation to extend vaccination to 11- and 12-year-old boys, there's reason to think things might be different this time. "There's been a surprisingly muted reaction," says Dr. Don Dizon, a Brown University oncologist. "We tend to believe that girls are chaste and are going to 'save themselves for marriage.' But, you know, sexual activity is something that's almost expected of boys." Seventeen-year-old Connor Perruccello-McClellan agrees. The idea that teenage girls might have sex is "just a touchy issue, a taboo, I guess," he says. "It's just not as accepted for girls." Perruccello-McClellan, a senior at Providence Country Day School in Rhode Island, is among the 1 percent of U.S. males who have already been vaccinated against HPV. That's because Rhode Island has one of the nation's most aggressive campaigns to vaccinate schoolchildren against nine different infections, including HPV. Still, like most people, he thought HPV vaccine protects only against cervical cancer — a notion that may have abetted the double standard associated with it. Cervical cancer [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-11-07T14:46:21-07:00November, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Oral cancers on rise due to HPV

Source: gargoyle.flagler.edu Author: staff Many Flagler College students are reconsidering human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines due to the growing number of head and neck cancers in the United States caused by the HPV virus. According to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the number of cases of oropharyngeal cancer, which are cancers of the tonsils, throat and base of the tongue, have been rising since the mid-1980s. “I got all three shots because I was influenced by my doctor and my mom because it seemed like a good way to protect myself,” said student Courtney Fusilier. “I think people should get it if they don’t want to die from those types of cancer.” The causes of oral cancers function within two categories: cancer caused by tobacco and alcohol and cancer caused by the sexually transmitted virus, HPV, researchers said. Researchers now believe that 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancers are caused by HPV. “The HPV status of a patient’s tumor is the single greatest determinant of whether a person lives or dies after a diagnosis of local-regionally advanced oropharynx cancer,” Gillison said. According to Gillison, about 95 percent of the HPV-positive oropharynx cancers were caused by HPV16. This strain is specifically targeted by Gardasil and Cervarix, which are two vaccines on the market to prevent cervical cancer. Communication major Adair Findley believes the HPV vaccines should be taken for a good piece of mind. “HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection so I think it is important to [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-10-15T05:19:56-07:00October, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Increase in oral cancers linked to HPV

Source: thechart.blogs.cnn.com Author: Saundra Young - CNN Medical Senior Producer The human papillomavirus is contributing to the growing number of head and neck cancers in the United States, according to a new study Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study found that the number of cases of oropharyngeal cancer - cancers of the tonsil, back of the mouth (throat) and base of the tongue - has been on the rise since the mid-1980s. The study suggests that one reason could an increase in the number of people having oral sex resulting in oral human papillomavirus exposure. Researchers say these cancers fall into two categories–those caused by tobacco and alcohol and those caused by the sexually transmitted virus, HPV. They now believe approximately 70% of all oropharyngeal cancers are caused by HPV infection. "We used to think of oropharyngeal cancer as one cancer," said senior author Dr. Maura Gillison, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus. "Now we know the disease is comprised of two biologically and epidemiologically distinct cancers. This new understanding will increasingly enable us to improve and better personalize care for patients with each form of the disease." Researchers tested cancer tissue samples from almost 6,000 patients in Hawaii, Iowa and Los Angeles between 1984 and 2004. They found the HPV-positive cancers increased 225% while HPV-negative oropharynx cancers dropped 50%–most likely because of a reduction in smoking and tobacco use. Even so, patients with HPV-positive cancers live longer. "Patients with HPV positive cancers have [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-10-03T13:51:20-07:00October, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Nanotechnology targets head/neck cancer

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff Preclinical studies have shown that the NanoSmart drug-delivery system from Aura Biosciences can enable earlier detection of head and neck and other cancers, and provide precisely targeted treatment of those cancers, according to the company. Aura Biosciences has raised an additional $4.5 million from private investors to advance this research and has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the National Institutes of Health to further develop and eventually commercialize the technology. "Malignant tumors of epithelial tissues are the most common form of cancer and are responsible for the majority of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. Mortality is linked increasingly to early metastasis, which is often undetected at the time of primary diagnosis," stated Elisabet de los Pinos, PhD, founder and CEO of Aura Biosciences, in a press release. "The development of a real-time detection system that is sensitive and specific for epithelial tumors, and that can further enable a targeted treatment to distant metastases, could lead to major improvements in efficacy and survival rates." NanoSmart utilizes nanosphere particles (NSPs) that have a selective tropism for epithelial-derived tumor cells. With NanoSmart, fluorescing molecules are encapsulated into these NSPs, which then selectively target diseased tissue, penetrate the cancerous cells, and release a fluorescent signal that can be visualized in real-time with existing medical imaging equipment. The same NSP vehicle can also be loaded with a chemotherapeutic drug to deliver a lethal dose directly to the tumor cancer cells, ostensibly increasing the drug's efficacy while [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-09-19T19:25:28-07:00September, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Collaboration of major biomedical centers has shown convergence on a cellular process for head and neck cancers

Source: www.rxpgnews.com Author: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Powerful new technologies that zoom in on the connections between human genes and diseases have illuminated the landscape of cancer, singling out changes in tumor DNA that drive the development of certain types of malignancies such as melanoma or ovarian cancer. Now several major biomedical centers have collaborated to shine a light on head and neck squamous cell cancer. Their large-scale analysis has revealed a surprising new set of mutations involved in this understudied disease. In back-to-back papers published online July 28 in Science, researchers from the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have confirmed genetic abnormalities previously suspected in head and neck cancer, including defects in the tumor suppressor gene known as p53. But the two teams also found mutations in the NOTCH family of genes, suggesting their role as regulators of an important stage in cell development may be impaired. "This adds a new dimension to head and neck cancer biology that was not on anyone's radar screen before," said Levi A. Garraway, a senior associate member of the Broad Institute, an assistant professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, and a senior author of one of the Science papers. "Head and neck cancer is complex and there are many mutations, but we can infer there is a convergence on a cellular process for which we previously did not have [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-08-02T11:40:36-07:00August, 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|

Can HPV vaccine stop throat cancer?

Source: children.webmd.com Author: Daniel J. DeNoon, WebMD Health News (Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD) HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines protect against the sexually transmitted strains of HPV that cause cervical cancer. The same HPV strains -- spread by kissing and by oral sex -- cause oropharyngeal (OP) cancer, the form of head and neck cancer that affects the back and sides of the throat, the base of the tongue, and the tonsils. There's strong evidence that HPV vaccines prevent cervical cancer. There's no direct proof that these vaccines prevent throat cancer, but the rapid rise in cases among young people has some experts wanting to vaccinate first and get proof later. "We don't need to wait until all these molecular events are understood," Dong Moon Shin, MD, of Emory University's Winship Cancer Center, tells WebMD. "The time is now. For the HPV vaccine, cost is the only issue as side effects are minimal. Routine HPV vaccination has to be implemented very soon, for both boys and girls." In the U.S., that recommendation is made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The ACIP now recommends routine HPV vaccination only for girls and young women in order to prevent cervical cancer. It permits vaccination of boys who want protection against HPV-caused genital warts. For two years, the ACIP has been mulling whether to recommend the HPV vaccine for boys. This would help prevent cervical cancer in unvaccinated women. It also would prevent HPV-related anal cancer and genital warts in both men [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-06-25T08:44:16-07:00June, 2011|Oral Cancer News|