oral cancer foundation – Page 6

Penn Dental School walks for oral cancer

Source: media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com Author: Jenny Chung Diagnosed as the cause of death for over 8,000 Americans annually, oral cancer is a disease that rarely garners the attention it deserves. But this year, Penn Dental School students are raising awareness with the first Oral Cancer Walk Philadelphia. Organized by the Oral Cancer Awareness Society, the walk is to be held tomorrow - regardless of weather conditions - beginning at 10 a.m. Participants will follow a 3.1-mile circular route that starts and finishes at the University's School of Dental Medicine at 240 S. 40th St. All participants are required to raise a minimum of $20 to benefit the Oral Cancer Foundation, while oral cancer survivors are invited to walk for free as honored guests. Refreshments and live entertainment will be provided along the Walk free of charge until 2 p.m. Complimentary oral screenings will also be offered from 10 a.m. onward. OCAS was founded last year by Penn Dental students Ann Layvey and Natalie Powell, who were "inspired to organize a charity event of their own" after attending a Penn Law fundraiser last year, according to the Web site. The Walk was coordinated through the combined efforts of over 40 students in five different subcommittees and boasts a logo designed by Penn Dental student Susana Porras. Thus far, the group has raised nearly $10,000 for the Oral Cancer Foundation from corporate sponsors and various organizations affiliated with the dental school. According to Oral Cancer Walk Philadelphia Head of Media Relations Michelle Han, the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-04-17T12:35:28-07:00April, 2009|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Oral Cancer Foundation calls for FDA authority over tobacco marketers

Source: Author: The Oral Cancer Foundation today called for the U.S. Senate to grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products in response to the tobacco industry's most aggressive marketing campaign targeted at women and girls in over a decade. The U.S. House of Representatives voted to give the FDA such authority approximately two weeks ago. "The percentage of oral cancer patients represented by women has increased tremendously over the past four decades, and we believe the marketing efforts of the tobacco industry is a major causal factor," said Brian Hill, founder of the Oral Cancer Foundation. "Before Virginia Slims began aggressively targeting women in the 1960s, roughly one-in-ten oral cancer victims was female. Since then, the ratio has quintupled to one-in-two." Hill also noted that lung cancer surpassed breast cancer as the number one cancer killer of women in 1987, and that while overall cancer rates are declining for men and women, lung cancer is not declining among women. Moreover, smoking puts women and girls at greater risk of a wide range of other deadly diseases, including heart attacks, strokes and emphysema. Hill cited "Deadly in Pink: Big Tobacco Steps Up Its Targeting of Women and Girls," a comprehensive report recently issued by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The report studied numerous tobacco marketing campaigns, images from which can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/deadlyinpink. "In reading this report, three [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-04-17T08:05:22-07:00April, 2009|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

VELscope System Called the World’s Leading Oral Cancer Screening System

Source: LED Dental Inc Writer: John Pohl WHITE ROCK, British Columbia—February 27, 2009—LED Dental Inc. claimed today that its VELscope system is used for more oral cancer examinations than any other adjunctive technology in the world. Impressive Milestones Passed According to Dr. Ralph Green, president and CEO of LED Dental's parent, LED Medical Diagnostics, "Since our mid-2006 launch, we have sold over 4,000 VELscope systems worldwide. Based on an independent survey of VELscope users, we estimate that these devices have been used to conduct over 4 million VELscope exams to date." Dr. Green added, "What's more, we estimate that over 3 million additional VELscope exams will be conducted in 2009 alone. Based on sales information reported by our leading competitor, it is clear that their product is currently being used for a much lower number of exams." Powerful Supporting Research The tissue fluorescence visualization technology platform on which the VELscope system is based is the culmination of over $50 million in research funded by the National Institutes of Health and other respected institutions and conducted by such leading organizations as the British Columbia Cancer Agency and the University of Texas's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Translating this highly sophisticated, breakthrough technology for use in an efficacious device to examine the oral mucosa was the brainchild of LED Dental and the British Columbia Cancer Agency. Launched in 2006 as the first tissue fluorescence device made commercially available to the dental community, the VELscope system revolutionized the dental practitioner's ability to visualize the oral mucosal [...]

Webmaster2009-02-27T20:19:09-07:00February, 2009|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

World renowned HPV expert joins OSU cancer program

Source: media-newswire.com Author: press release Leading human papilloma virus ( HPV ) expert Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, will join The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute on Jan. 1 as a professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology and a member of the Cancer Control and Viral Oncology Programs in Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. She will hold the Jeg Coughlin Chair in Cancer Research. Focusing on the role that HPV plays in the development of head and neck cancers, Gillison was the first to identify HPV infection as the cause of certain oral cancers and identified multiple sex partners as the most important risk factor for these cancers. At Ohio State, Gillison plans to build a program focused on identifying associations between infections and cancers, with the ultimate goal of applying discoveries to prevent and treat cancer. A frequent guest on national network newscasts and quoted extensively in cancer trade and national consumer publications, Gillison was recruited from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she was an associate professor and a member of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. The American Society of Clinical Oncology named Gillison’s research on HPV-associated head/neck cancers as one of six major clinical cancer advances for 2007. “Recruiting Dr. Gillison is part of our aggressive and ongoing strategy to recruit the world’s best and brightest cancer researchers and clinicians to The Ohio State University,” said Dr. Michael Caligiuri, director of Ohio State’s [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-13T16:00:01-07:00November, 2008|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Like mother, like daughter – cover story interview with Grandmother Blythe Danner

Source: www.grandmagazineonline.com Author: Mary Hunt Mom to Gwyneth and grandmother to Apple, Emmy Award-winner Blythe Danner at 62 is finding more fame than she ever sought. Blythe Danner, at 62, just set the new record for the number of Emmy nominations for acting in a single year (three). But ask most people to put her name and “superstar” in a sentence, and another name will most likely be added: Blythe Danner is the mother of superstar Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow once told reporter Jeanne Wolf, “I did not set out to be a celebrity. I just wanted to do what my mother did. I don't know how it snowballed into what it snowballed into.” What her mother has done is to have a solid, satisfying career balancing stage, TV and the occasional film. How her mother avoided the snowball was primarily her passion for privacy—and for her family. There was never anything to gossip about with Blythe Danner. She married young and stayed married, and once told a reporter that the only designer wear she owned was Halston—specifically, his Brownie Leader uniform. Today she relishes the role of grandmother, both onscreen (with Robert DeNiro as her husband, in Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers) and off, calling herself “a doting grandmother” to 20-month-old Apple Blythe Martin, Gwyneth's daughter. It all sounds pretty wholesome for a woman whose first big career move was in her underwear. In 1969, Danner made her Broadway debut in Butterflies Are Free, at the age of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-12T17:18:03-07:00October, 2008|OCF In The News|

Sister honors her brother by supporting Oral Cancer Foundation

Source: OCF Press Release Author: John Pohl David Nasto was the kind of person many of us wish we could be. He was a surfer. A snowboarder. A kayaker. A bicycler. An artist. A world traveler. A free spirit. Not content to simply be a devoted fan of the Grateful Dead, he also designed their album covers. Simply put, David Nasto loved life, and he lived it on his own terms. David Nasto was also his sister Susan’s hero. So when David developed oral cancer in 2005, Susan decided to learn as much about the disease as she could. And when David passed away the following year, she decided to honor her brother do by doing what she could to help prevent others from suffering the way he suffered. “When David was diagnosed with oral cancer, I was shocked,” said Susan. “He was so athletic, so healthy, and he had never smoked a cigarette in his life. I didn’t think oral cancer struck people like him.” Susan tried to learn as much as she could about the disease, spending much of her free time doing online research. During that process she discovered the website of the Oral Cancer Foundation. “I learned a lot about oral cancer, but the most important thing I learned is the importance of early detection. So when David died, I wanted to find a way to raise money to help increase awareness of the need for everyone to get checked for oral cancer on a regular [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-10-06T20:16:14-07:00October, 2008|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Saving lives… All in a day’s work

Author: Jo-Anne Jones, RDH Source: 'Oral Health Journal (www.oralhealthjournal.com) If you have ever had a diagnosis from a medical doctor that leaves your life temporarily hanging in the balance, you will truly appreciate the emotional impact the diagnosis of oral cancer has on an individual. For those that unfortunately receive this type of news, death may be very prolonged and extremely painful both mentally and physically. Unfortunately, this is the second year in a row in which there has been an increase in the number of occurrences, this time of about 11% over the previous year. 1 Here are the facts... the five-year survival rate from oral cancer has not significantly improved in the past 30 years, remaining at approximately 50-59% More than 34,000 (35,310 cases estimated in 2008 involving the oral cavity and pharynx2)Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year. It will cause over 8,000 deaths, killing roughly one person per hour, 24 hours per day. Of those 34,000 newly diagnosed individuals, only half will be alive in 5 years. This is a number which has not significantly improved in decades. The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that of cancers which we hear about routinely, such as cervical cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, laryngeal cancer, cancer of the testes, endocrine system, thyroid, or skin cancer (malignant melanoma). If you expand the definition of oral cancers to include cancer of the larynx, for which the risk factors are the same, the number of diagnosed cases [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-07-08T22:01:10-07:00July, 2008|OCF In The News|

Actress Colleen Zenk Pinter Partners with the Oral Cancer Foundation to Raise Public Awareness

Two time Emmy nominated actress Colleen Zenk Pinter, best known for her long running role as Barbara Ryan on CBS's As the World Turns, has teamed up with the Oral Cancer Foundation to share the story of her battle against oral cancer, and raise public awareness of a disease which kills more Americans each year than more commonly known cancers. Zenk Pinter's first stop was CBS's The Early Show. In an interview with co-anchor Hannah Storm, Zenk Pinter revealed how a seemingly stubborn canker sore turned out to be a stage-two malignant oral cancer, requiring several surgeries to reconstruct her tongue, and months of radiation treatments. Zenk Pinter explained to Storm that she believes that her cancer was caused by the human papillomavirus. "I had absolutely none of the historic risk factors for this cancer, I never used tobacco and only drank socially," she said, referring to the two other common causes of the disease. "In fact, young Americans who have none of the historic risk factors are the fastest growing segment of oral cancer patients in the country," Brian Hill, executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation says, "and we believe the culprit behind the surge in cases is HPV16, the same virus that causes cervical cancer." Dr. Mark Lingen, Professor of Pathology at the University of Chicago School of Medicine says, "Colleen was very typical of most Americans in their lack of knowledge of oral cancer. Awareness and routine screening is particularly important, since early discovery is directly [...]

Webmaster2008-07-08T22:22:48-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

The Oral Cancer Foundation Issues First Research Grants

11/21/2007 Newport Beach, CA press release prnewsire.com The Oral Cancer Foundation announced today that three researchers working in areas of early oral cancer detection would be the foundation's first grant recipients. The grants, which were made as an ongoing commitment to each researcher, were awarded to Dr. Maura Gillison of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dr. David Wong of the University of California at Los Angeles, and Dr. Ann Gillenwater of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. "We are supporting research that moves our early discovery agenda forward," the foundation's executive director Brian Hill said. "Early detection is our first front in reducing the death rate from oral cancer, and we believe these research programs all will have a huge impact on how and when people are diagnosed with the disease. Early detection and staging is directly correlated to better long-term outcomes for patients." The disease affects more than 34,000 Americans each year, and more than 8,000 will die from it annually. At the present time two-thirds of cases are caught in the cancer's later stages when prognosis is poor. At 5 years from diagnosis survival for all stages combined is approximately 50%. While other cancers have seen a decline in incidence and death, occurrence of oral and oropharyngeal cancers have increased in recent years, 11% in 2007 alone. "Public awareness of the disease is low, and screening models used incorrectly or inconsistently are largely to blame for the high death rate," Hill said. "We could be doing [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:31:39-07:00November, 2007|OCF In The News|

Vaccine Treatment Takes Aim At Oral Cancer

10/29/2007 web-based article Hilary Waldman cancer.uchc.edu Promising New Drug Was Originally Designed To Fight Cervical Cancer A new cervical cancer vaccine headed for FDA approval this month could also put a dent in new cases of oral cancer - one of the deadliest cancers in the United States. At least one-quarter of oral cancer cases may be linked to human papillomavirus, the same sexually transmitted bug that causes cervical cancer. "Because of this vaccine, in 10 to 15 years, we're going to find many fewer head and neck cancers, it will have a positive collateral benefit not related to its primary cervical cancer use." said Brian Hill, founder and executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation. Researchers started looking for new possible causes of oral cancer when tobacco use dropped precipitously in the United States but the incidence of oral cancer did not. About 34,000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer in the United States this year, and only half of them will be alive in five years. The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that for cancer of the cervix, testicles, skin (melanoma), Hodgkins disease, a type of blood cancer and other we commonly hear about. Six years ago, researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine looked at 253 patients with head and neck tumors and found HPV-16 - the tumor-causing strain of the virus - in 25 percent of those patients. HPV-positive tumors are most likely to occur in the throat, base of the tongue, [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:39:36-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|