immunotherapy

Clinical trial gets oral cancer survivor through ‘mean’ cancer

Source: web.musc.edu Author: Leslie Cantu Brittany Person was reluctant to enroll in the clinical trial that her oncologist, John Kaczmar, M.D., recommended. Not because she was afraid of taking part in research, but because she just couldn’t deal with any more side effects. She'd already had every one in the book after being treated for a tongue cancer that had returned – and then returned again. “I was just coming off the tail end of chemo, where I had the worst side effects from the chemo and radiation. My body was just tired and beat up and scarred,” she said. When Kaczmar outlined the potential side effects of the investigational drug, she thought, “I just really don't want to do that again. That didn't sound like something I wanted to put myself through.” As she and her husband, Patrick Wilkin, drove from MUSC Hollings Cancer Center to Duke Cancer Institute for a second opinion, Person told Wilkin, “They need to tell me something crazy in order for me to do this trial.” That’s pretty much what they did. “The lady at Duke told me if I didn’t do anything, I would have six months to live,” Person said. “When we got the whole ‘six months to live’ talk, if you do nothing, or two years, if you do the standard immunotherapy, and that the experimental trial is your best shot at actually beating the thing, that's when Brittany and I were like, ‘Yeah, let's do this experimental trial,’” Wilkin said. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-12-15T07:49:56-07:00December, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Immunotherapy shows promise as a kinder first-line treatment for advanced head and neck cancers

Source: www.icr.ac.uk Author: staff Oral squamous cancer cell (white) being attacked by two cytotoxic T cells (red). Credit: NIH Immunotherapy can extend the response of some head and neck tumours to treatment, maintaining the anti-tumour effects and preventing them from growing or spreading for longer, a study reports. A new trial shows that amongst patients whose tumours were sensitive to immunotherapy, the treatment could keep their cancer from growing or spreading for longer and with fewer side effects than the previous standard of care therapy. A personalised approach to immunotherapy The findings of the KESTREL trial support the need for a personalised approach to immunotherapy treatments, as although these treatments work for a minority of patients, they can bring significant improvements in quality of life for those who respond. As well as leading to long-lasting responses, the immunotherapy durvalumab, on its own or combined with another immunotherapy called tremelimumab, also led to fewer side effects in people with head and neck cancer which had spread or come back. Fewer than 2 in 10 people on immunotherapy had severe side effects, compared to around half of the patients on the standard of care regimen. An international trial The results from the KESTREL study, led by an international team of researchers including scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, offer hope for the development of kinder first-line treatments for this hard-to-treat cancer. The study was published in Annals of Oncology and was funded by AstraZeneca. Overall, the trial did [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-10-04T07:54:05-07:00October, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Best practices for immunotherapy for metastatic head and neck cancer

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Author: Mark L. Fuerst , Contributing Writer, MedPage Today This Reading Room is a collaboration between MedPage Today® and: Medpage Today Immunotherapy with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is now an essential treatment for patients with recurrent and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and ICIs also show promise for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and other rare head and neck cancer types. A recently released ASCO Guideline on immunotherapy and biomarker testing in recurrent and metastatic HNSCCs provided evidence-based recommendations. A new related document by expert panel co-chairs Emrullah Yilmaz, MD, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Loren K. Mell, MD, of the University of San Diego, and colleagues poses questions and answers about the guideline. The following is a summary: For patients with recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer, which biomarkers should be used in the selection of anti–PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy? We recommend programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) testing for recurrent and metastatic HNSCC. PD-L1 reports come via immunohistochemistry using CPS or tumor proportion score. CPS has emerged as a preferred biomarker in HNSCC and has been used in landmark head and neck clinical trials such as KEYNOTE-048. Tumor mutational burden (TMB), another emerging biomarker for predicting response to anti–PD-1 ICIs, was studied in KEYNOTE-158. TMB is not used routinely in HNSCC, but may help in cases where PD-L1 CPS is unavailable or for rare head and neck cancers. In first-line treatment of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-09-04T08:50:20-07:00September, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Interdisciplinary group focuses on developing personalized oral cancer vaccine

Source: web.musc.edu Author: Leslie Cantu Jason Newman, M.D., Angela Yoon, D.D.S., and Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D., are working together on a project to develop a personalized vaccine to prevent oral cancer from returning. Photo by Clif Rhodes Interdisciplinary innovation is a hallmark of MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, and it doesn’t get much more interdisciplinary than this – three people, one each with an M.D., a D.D.S., and a Ph.D., working together to develop a new type of personalized vaccine to prevent oral cancer recurrence. “The amazing thing to me is that Jason Newman and I started on the same day at MUSC, which was March 1 of last year. He came from UPenn. I came from Columbia, and Shikhar has been at MUSC forever. It's just three different people who never knew each other before that time, and then we somehow got together and the synergy was there,” said Angela Yoon, D.D.S. Yoon, a professor in the James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine who focuses on cancer biomarkers and immunomodulatory therapy, is leading the effort in collaboration with the two professors from the College of Medicine: Jason Newman, M.D., Head and Neck Cancer Division director, and Shikhar Mehrotra, Ph.D., scientific director of the Center for Cellular Therapy. They’re getting their project started using funding provided by Hollings. Periodically, Hollings awards funds to MUSC departments as a way to reinvest in faculty members who are conducting cancer research. Participating in clinical trials and on scientific committees and writing new [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-08-29T11:04:49-07:00August, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Best practices for immunotherapy for metastatic head and neck cancer

Source: www.medpagetoday.com Author: Mark L. Fuerst , Contributing Writer, MedPage Today Immunotherapy with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is now an essential treatment for patients with recurrent and metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and ICIs also show promise for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and other rare head and neck cancer types. A recently released ASCO Guideline on immunotherapy and biomarker testing in recurrent and metastatic HNSCCs provided evidence-based recommendations. A new related document by expert panel co-chairs Emrullah Yilmaz, MD, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Loren K. Mell, MD, of the University of San Diego, and colleagues poses questions and answers about the guideline. The following is a summary: For patients with recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer, which biomarkers should be used in the selection of anti–PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy? We recommend programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) testing for recurrent and metastatic HNSCC. PD-L1 reports come via immunohistochemistry using CPS or tumor proportion score. CPS has emerged as a preferred biomarker in HNSCC and has been used in landmark head and neck clinical trials such as KEYNOTE-048. Tumor mutational burden (TMB), another emerging biomarker for predicting response to anti–PD-1 ICIs, was studied in KEYNOTE-158. TMB is not used routinely in HNSCC, but may help in cases where PD-L1 CPS is unavailable or for rare head and neck cancers. In first-line treatment of patients with PD-L1 CPS ≥ 1 recurrent and metastatic HNSCC, can pembrolizumab [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-08-19T06:39:22-07:00August, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

“Immunotherapy is keeping me alive” – John’s story

Source: www.icr.ac.uk Author: John Dabell On his daughter’s second birthday in 2009, John Dabell was diagnosed with advanced head and neck cancer. He went through extensive surgery and treatment and was on the road to recovery when he was diagnosed with cancer again – this time, a tumour in his throat. John was told he didn’t have long to live. But then he started immunotherapy. Here, he talks about its incredible impact and the opportunity it’s given him to spend more time with his wife and daughter. The first red flag telling me something was wrong was when my tongue started to swell. I soldiered on because I didn’t think there was anything sinister going on. That was a mistake. I started having difficulty eating and swallowing, but I put that down to my throat being sore. I was also extremely tired, but I had a young daughter at home and was busy being a primary school teacher. After about a month, things hadn’t improved. I found that I couldn’t utter my words in the same way and things started to get painful. Then my tongue inflated, and I went to see my GP, who recommended I see my dentist. My dentist immediately referred me to a head and neck specialist at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham. My life changed forever A biopsy and MRI scan revealed that I had a tumour growing inside my tongue and it was stage four head and neck cancer. This knocked me for [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-06-15T05:51:09-07:00June, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Can lymph nodes boost the success of cancer immunotherapy?

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: from University of California, San Francisco Cancer treatment routinely involves taking out lymph nodes near the tumor in case they contain metastatic cancer cells. But new findings from a clinical trial by researchers at UC San Francisco and Gladstone Institutes shows that immunotherapy can activate tumor-fighting T cells in nearby lymph nodes. The study, published in Cell, suggests that leaving lymph nodes intact until after immunotherapy could boost efficacy against solid tumors, only a small fraction of which currently respond to these newer types of treatments. Most immunotherapies are aimed only at reinvigorating T cells in the tumor, where they often become exhausted battling the tumor's cancer cells. But the new research shows that allowing the treatment to activate the immune response of the lymph nodes as well can play an important role in driving positive response to immunotherapy. "This work really changes our thinking about the importance of keeping lymph nodes in the body during treatment," said Matt Spitzer, Ph.D., an investigator for the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and Gladstone-UCSF Institute of Genomic Immunology and senior author of the study. Lymph nodes are often removed because they are typically the first place metastatic cancer cells appear, and without surgery, it can be difficult to determine whether the nodes contain metastases. "Immunotherapy is designed to jump start the immune response, but when we take out nearby lymph nodes before treatment, we're essentially removing the key locations where T cells live and can be activated," Spitzer said, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-03-21T08:10:55-07:00March, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Tech innovation offers hope for head/neck cancer treatment

Source: www.miragenews.com Author: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Over the past decade, human papillomavirus (HPV) has increasingly been identified as a significant cause of certain head and neck cancers – for example, evidence suggests it causes 70% of oropharyngeal cancers in the United States. Further, over the past three decades, incidence of HPV-driven cancers has increased substantially worldwide and in the U.S. While there are well-established screening tools, as well as vaccines, for HPV-driven cancers such as cervical cancer, there are fewer resources for HPV-driven head and neck cancers. As a result, researchers are working with a sense of urgency to develop innovative therapeutics to treat them. One groundbreaking therapeutic has shown significant promise in a phase 1 clinical trial led by Antonio Jimeno, MD, PhD, co-leader of the University of Colorado Cancer Center Developmental Therapeutics Program and the CU Cancer Center head and neck cancer SPORE grant. Research results published today show that a microfluidic squeezing technology used on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), a type of immune cell, helps stimulate anti-tumor activity in a subtype of HPV16-positive cancers, including head and neck, cervical, and anal cancers. “This technology is quite novel,” Jimeno explains. “As opposed to other cell therapies that require a patient’s cells to be genetically modified, this involves a different way of manipulating cells that does not lead to genetic modifications. It makes the process faster and perhaps more agile as to what you can direct the cells against.” “Sending them to boot camp” This [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-03-04T20:48:49-07:00March, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Ultralow dose of nivolumab offers huge cost savings

Source: www.medscape.com Author: M. Alexander Otto, PA, MMS A randomized clinical trial from India raises the possibility of huge cost savings by using much lower doses of immunotherapy. The researchers used just 6% of the recommended dose of nivolumab instead of the full dose in their treatment of patients with advanced head and neck cancer, and the addition of this low dose to the standard regimen improved 1-year survival by 25%. The study was published on January 10 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and has been downloaded almost 2000 times. The findings suggest that low doses of immunotherapy might be equivalent to the much higher doses that are approved and are currently used, two medical oncologists comment in a related editorial. If these findings can be extrapolated to other immune checkpoint inhibitors and to other tumor types, switching to the lower doses could save healthcare systems billions of dollars, write Aaron Mitchell, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, and Daniel Goldstein, MD, of Tel Aviv University, Israel. Improving Access With limited resources, the Indian healthcare system cannot afford full-dose checkpoint inhibitors, and as a result, fewer than 5% of patients have access to them, explained trial investigators led by Vijay Maruti Patil, MD, a medical oncologist at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India. The goal of the trial was to see whether lower, less expensive doses were effective for patients with advanced head and neck cancer. The idea is to increase access by making treatment more [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2023-01-19T06:40:45-07:00January, 2023|Oral Cancer News|

Treatment side effects to head and neck cancer patients reduced using immunotherapy

Source: www.theepochtimes.com Authors: Shan Lam, Nathan Amery Head and neck cancer patients suffer many side effects from conventional treatments, research shows such side effects can be reduced by using the recently developed “immunotherapy” treatment. Hong Kong Cancer Information Charity Foundation (CICF) announced the results of a questionnaire survey on “head and neck cancers” on Nov. 15. It was found that over 80 percent of the respondents experienced eating difficulties, including taste changes, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) and oral ulcers; Respondents who received conventional treatment reported an average of 8.5 treatment side effects, and 43 percent had 10 or more side effects. CICF pointed out that the emergence of “immunotherapy” in recent years has reduced the side effects of conventional treatments and urged the government to include related treatments in funding projects. According to the CICF, head and neck cancers refer to cancer lesions in the head and neck, which can be divided into two types: head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma. They are named after the original organs, such as oral cancer, hypopharyngeal cancer, and throat cancer. Over the past ten years, the number of new cases of head and neck cancers in Hong Kong has continued to rise, and the average number of deaths is 210 each year, accounting for 30 percent of those new cases. In the middle of 2022, the research team interviewed 97 head and neck cancer patients directly or through their caregivers in the form of an online questionnaire. The purpose was [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2022-11-30T21:31:35-07:00November, 2022|Oral Cancer News|