mutations – Page 2 – Oral Cancer News

Kramer: Our cancer risk is not written in the stars

Source: http://www.cancerletter.com/ Author: Matthew Ong, reporter with The Cancer Letter The stochastic process of stem cell divisions should not be equated with bad luck, said Barnett Kramer, director of the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention, focusing on misinterpretations of the “Bad Luck” paper by Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Kramer spoke with Matthew Ong, a reporter with The Cancer Letter. Matthew Ong: What was your overall impression of the Tomasetti and Vogelstein paper? Barnett Kramer: I found the paper interesting. What they did was they didn’t generate any new experimental evidence, obviously. They searched the literature for reports on numbers of stem cells and number of divisions of the stem cells. They used well-accepted concepts that the risk of mutations or number of mutations are relatively constant for a given cell division—in statistical terms, a stochastic process—that is, any given division, you don’t know which gene is going to mutate, but for every given division, you can predict, relatively accurately, how many mutations are going to occur in the division. You just don’t know which cell it’s going to happen to. But if you have enough cells, then a statistical analysis of this stochastic process gives you, generally, a pretty good idea of how many mutations there are, and the number of mutations to be a risk factor for cancer. MO: What were the authors trying to achieve in their analysis? MK: They took well-known concepts, went to the literature, looked for the number [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-01-17T12:26:27-07:00January, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Researchers find way to diagnose aggressiveness of oral cancer

Source: www.news-medical.net Author: staff Studying mouth cancer in mice, researchers have found a way to predict the aggressiveness of similar tumors in people, an early step toward a diagnostic test that could guide treatment, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "All patients with advanced head and neck cancer get similar treatments," said Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, associate professor of otolaryngology. "We have patients who do well on standard combinations of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and patients who don't do so well. We're interested in finding out why." Reporting in Clinical Cancer ResearchK/em>, the investigators found a consistent pattern of gene expression associated with tumor spreading in mice. Analyzing genetic data from human oral cancer samples, they also found this gene signature in people with aggressive metastatic tumors. "We didn't automatically assume this mouse model would be relevant to human oral cancer," said Uppaluri, who performs head and neck surgeries at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "But it turns out to be highly reflective of the disease in people." Rather than use genetic methods to induce tumors in the mice, the research team repeatedly applied a known carcinogen, in much the same way humans develop cancer of the mouth. "Patients often have a history of tobacco and alcohol use, which drive the development of these tumors," Uppaluri said. "We felt that exposing the mice to a carcinogen would be more likely to produce similar kinds of tumors." The researchers, including first author Michael D. Onken, PhD, research assistant [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-06-29T20:25:48-07:00June, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Recurrent head and neck tumors have gene mutations that could be vulnerable to cancer drug

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: staff An examination of the genetic landscape of head and neck cancers indicates that while metastatic and primary tumor cells share similar mutations, recurrent disease is associated with gene alterations that could be exquisitely sensitive to an existing cancer drug. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and Yale University School of Medicine will share their findings during a mini-symposium Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2014. About 50 percent of patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell cancers already have disease that has spread, or metastasized, to the lymph nodes, explained Jennifer Grandis, M.D., distinguished professor and vice chair of research, Department of Otolaryngology, Pitt School of Medicine, and director of the Head and Neck Program at UPCI, partner with UPMC CancerCenter. About 20 to 30 percent of patients thought to be cured of the disease go on to develop recurrent cancer, which typically doesn't respond to standard treatments. "We decided to compare the genetic signatures of tumor cells from primary tumors with those from disease that had spread and cancers that were thought cured but then came back in the hopes of getting some clues about how best to guide therapy in these different settings," Dr. Grandis said. "We found that recurrent cancers might have an Achilles' heel we can exploit to kill them." The team conducted the first whole-exome genetic sequencing study on what Dr. Grandis called its "treasure trove" of frozen patient samples and found similar [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-04-06T06:28:03-07:00April, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Study reveals genetic diversity within tumors predicts outcome in head and neck cancer

Source: bionews-tx.com Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary have developed a new way to predict the survival rate of patients who have squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, thanks to a study partially funded by a CPRIT grant. One of the problems with treating cancer is the degree of genetic heterogeneity within a tumor. What this means is that there are sub populations of tumor cells within a given tumor that have different mutations. This makes the cancer difficult to treat because some cells due to their different mutations will be resistant to the same treatment. According to Edmund Mroz, PhD at the MGH center for Cancer Research (lead author of a report in Cancer on May 20, 2013), this new method of measuring genetic heterogeneity can be applied to a wide range of cancers. (Additional co-authors included Curtis Pickering, PhD, and Jeffrey Myers, MD, PhD, both from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.) Prior to this study, genes and proteins that are involved with treatment resistance have been identified, however, there has been no way to measure tumor heterogeneity to predict patient survival. Mroz and his group of researchers working in the lab of James Rocco, MD, PhD at MGH developed this new measure by looking at advanced gene sequencing data to calculate a number that indicates the genetic variance found in sub populations of cells within a tumor. They dubbed this new procedure as the mutant-allele tumor [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-05-25T14:02:13-07:00May, 2013|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|

Head and neck cancer presentation highlights

Source: www.dailyrx.com Author: Travis Giddings The field of head and neck cancer from ASCO 2012 A recent presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology expanded on several molecular breakthroughs concerning head and neck cancers, and a team of doctors gave an overview of recent conclusions from their respective fields. The newly identified molecular pathway for cancers of the head and neck that involves the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) led to developments of highly effective drugs specific for the cancerous cells, EGFR inhibitors. Soon afterwards, scientists discovered the increasingly important role that the human papillomavirus (HPV) played in the development of cancers in the head and neck. Following the explosion of research in the field of molecular pathways involved in head and neck cancers, doctors quickly found that the cancer was a lot more complicated than previous believed. Additional research continues as scientists try to make sense of the data. Approaching the treatment of head and neck cancer from their perspectives from surgery, radiology, and oncology, doctors on the panel discussed the difficulties the field currently faced. The director of Johns Hopkins' Head and Neck Cancer Research department, oncologist David Sidransky, MD, opened the meeting. “The genetic and epigenetic alterations in human tumors are becoming increasingly important for devising and implementing personalized oncology approaches,” said Dr. Sidransky. “Unlike in some other cancers, in head and neck cancer the common mutations that have been identified have not been very helpful for treatment.” The chair of the conference was held by [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-06-08T07:56:18-07:00June, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Computer scientists may have what it takes to help cure cancer

Source: nytimes.com Author: David Patterson The war against cancer is increasingly moving into cyberspace. Computer scientists may have the best skills to fight cancer in the next decade — and they should be signing up in droves. One reason to enlist: Cancer is so pervasive. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Emperor of All Maladies,” the oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee writes that cancer is a disease of frightening fractions: One-fourth of deaths in the United States are caused by cancer; one-third of women will face cancer in their lifetimes; and so will half of men. As he wrote, “The question is not if we will get this immortal disease, but when.” Dr. Mukherjee noted that surprisingly recently, researchers discovered that cancer is a genetic disease, caused primarily by mutations in our DNA. As well as providing the molecular drivers of cancer, changes to the DNA also cause the diversity within a cancer tumor that makes it so hard to eradicate completely. The hope is that by sequencing the genome of a cancer tumor, doctors will soon be able to prescribe a personalized, targeted therapy to stop a cancer’s growth or to cure it. According to Walter Isaacson’s new biography “Steve Jobs,” a team of medical researchers sequenced the Apple executive’s pancreatic cancer tumor and used that information to decide which drug therapies to use. Since Mr. Jobs’s cancer had already spread, this effort was even more challenging. Each sequencing cost $100,000. Fortunately for the rest of us, the cost of turning [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-12-08T10:17:58-07:00December, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

A step toward a saliva test for cancer

Source: www.sciencedaily.com Author: staff A new saliva test can measure the amount of potential carcinogens stuck to a person's DNA -- interfering with the action of genes involved in health and disease -- and could lead to a commercial test to help determine risks for cancer and other diseases, scientists reported in Denver during the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). "The test measures the amount of damaged DNA in a person's body," said Professor Hauh-Jyun Candy Chen, Ph.D., who led the research team. "This is very important because such damaged DNA -- we call this 'DNA adducts' -- is a biomarker that may help doctors diagnose diseases, monitor how effective a treatment is and also recommend things high-risk patients can do to reduce the chances of actually getting a disease," said Chen. The research team is at National Chung Cheng University (NCCU) in Taiwan. "We tried urine and blood and found these adducts. Then we turned our attention to saliva. It's much more convenient to collect a sample of saliva." A DNA adduct forms when a potentially cancer-causing substance is chemically attached to a strand of DNA, which makes up genes. People come into contact with such substances in the environment, certain workplaces and through everyday activities. Cigarette smoke, for instance, contains at least 20 known cancer-causing substances. When such a substance binds to DNA, it changes the DNA so that genes may not work normally. Our body has a built-in repair system that [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-09-02T19:27:30-07:00September, 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|