oral cancer foundation – Page 7

A New Job for Bill Clinton

10/29/2007 web-based article Cliff Kincaid Accuracy in Media (www.aim.org) My commentary on the need for Bill Clinton to take the lead in warning teenagers about the dangers of oral sex caught the eye of Brian R. Hill, the founder/ Executive Director of the Oral Cancer Foundation, Inc. He is a stage IV oral cancer survivor. On the matter of a link between HPV 16, a sexually transmitted virus, and cancer, especially oral cancer, he writes: "The real data about this has been mostly published by Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins, and the correlation between HPV 16 in particular and oropharangeal and tonsillar cancers is without doubt, ditto the oral sex /oral cancer issue. There is no doubt that the HPV's forms which have cancer causing capabilities are on the rise, and the number of young, non-smoking, oral cancer patients has risen dramatically in recent years. While the primary cause, tobacco, has had its use steadily decline for more than 10 years in the U.S., the incidence rate of oral cancer has stayed the same. This would indicate that a new etiology is replacing the old stereotypical mechanism of getting this very deadly disease. "While you mention a Swedish study, the U.S. is way ahead of others in the peer-reviewed research that shows all this to be a major issue…Though the issue of awareness is critical, and Dr. Gillison even uses the word epidemic when she discusses HPV in the U.S., it is hard to get people of celebrity and power [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:37:58-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

The Oral Cancer Foundation Urges HPV Vaccination for Males

10/25/2007 Newport Beach, CA Keri Kramer Forbes.com For the public health, we need to fast-track research and approvals now, says foundation On the heels of a study published this month in the journal Cancer, and recent supporting science related to HPV and oral cancer in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Oral Cancer Foundation is urging researchers to expedite investigations on the safety of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccinations for males, and the FDA to fast track the approval once scientific due diligence has been accomplished. “The study affirms what we have long believed, namely that the vaccine can reduce oral cancer rates if given to both males and females,” says Brian Hill, Founder and Executive Director of the foundation. Currently, the vaccine, which shields against HPV strains 6, 11, 16 and 18, is administered to girls and adolescent females to protect against cervical cancer. Deaths from cervical cancer, which number about 3,700 annually, have steadily declined due to improved methods of early detection, and a population that knows the importance of annual screenings. Oral cancer also lends itself to early detection through a simple visual and tactile examination which could easily be implemented, but does not have a nationally adopted program of public awareness and compliant professionals engaged in such a screening process. In the US, 93 people per day will develop oral cancer, and one person will die from it every hour. This is more than double the death rate of cervical cancers, and is higher than that [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:40:46-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

Son, Father Hike 110 Miles to Benefit Oral Cancer Foundation

10/10/2005 Glen Allen, VA April Karys A Glen Allen, VA, boy and his father put blood and sweat (but no tears) into an effort to memorialize a loved one and support the Oral Cancer Foundation in the process: They hiked 110 miles of the Appalachian Trail and gave the donations they raised to the California-based Foundation. “It was tough,” said Robbie Schwieder, 15, who came up with the idea of doing the trek through the Shenandoah National Park portion of the Appalachian Trail, and later asked his father to join him. “It was really brutal, physically, mentally, in every way.” But despite the 40 pound backpacks, grueling terrain, stifling heat, and blisters upon blisters, Robbie and his father, Wylie, persevered and never complained. After all, they were walking in memory of Robbie's maternal grandmother, Elaine Hegarty, who'd undergone immense suffering of a graver kind-oral cancer. Hegarty was diagnosed with mouth cancer in 1993. The dignified, independent Milwaukee resident was initially told she'd have to have a radical, disfiguring surgery. After a second opinion, she underwent a procedure during which doctors accessed the tumor from inside her mouth and removed it completely. She healed, and life returned to normal-at least for a few years. “About 6 years later she developed a second tumor inside her mouth,” said Hegarty's daughter Katie Schwieder. “They removed that one, and then she was never the same. She wore dentures that never fit properly. She was having pain a fair bit.” By the summer of 2002, [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:44:08-07:00October, 2007|OCF In The News|

Early detection is the key to beating oral cancer

5/14/2007 Westchester, NY Linda Lombroso Gannett Co. Publishing It was nearly five years ago that Margaret Belair received chilling news: The sensitive spot on her tongue was far more than a pizza burn or a cold sore. It was oral cancer. Belair, who'd just given birth to a baby boy, was stunned. "It didn't look or feel hard,'' says the 41-year-old mother of two, who lives in Somers. "It was just a weird irritation of the tongue, just slightly discolored, and it felt like a big canker sore.'' Despite the shock of the diagnosis, Belair was fortunate. After an operation to cut out a portion of her tongue - and the precautionary removal of several lymph nodes in her neck - all she needed was eight weeks of speech therapy (to relearn how to pronounce certain sounds) and eight weeks of physical therapy (to build up the strength in her neck). For Brian Hill, the news was not as good. By the time his oral cancer was caught in 1997, it had metastasized to his lymph nodes. Nobody expected him to survive. Although the treatment was brutal - including radiation that destroyed his salivary glands and surgry which removed a portion of his neck - Hill ended up beating the odds. He has since founded the Oral Cancer Foundation, a national nonprofit research and advocacy organization, and has become an outspoken champion for early detection of the disease. One of the problems in catching oral cancer early, say experts, has [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:42:03-07:00May, 2007|OCF In The News|

Oral Cancer Foundation Builds Momentum in Public Screenings

9/1/2005 Los Angeles, CA April Karys US Newswire The Oral Cancer Foundation lit a fuse in Los Angeles recently that it hopes will set off a nationwide firecracker of prevention against a disease that, while potentially lethal, is highly survivable if caught in its early stages. “The big issue with oral cancer is that few people are aware of it, and doctors and dentists don't always screen for it,” says Harvey Pasternak, a consumer healthcare products consultant. Pasternak recently teamed with Oral Cancer Foundation founder Brian Hill bring to life Hill's idea of setting up free screenings for oral cancer in highest-risk communities. Brian Hill came to me with a premise. “You can go to a drug store and get screened for high cholesterol, or high blood pressure,” Hill said, “why not oral cancer detection as well? Why not set up a free oral cancer screening at a retailer, and see if we can engage the public in the same way.” Pasternak took the challenge and started inquiring with large Los Angeles retailers to secure a location for an initial proof of principle event. “I had three large companies interested in hosting the program, but didn't have any support to pay for what else is was needed-shipping for banners, advertising, dental equipment for the dentists who would do the screenings.” The Foundation reached an agreement with Wal-Mart to hold the screening at its new store in the Baldwin Hills. The Crenshaw District location was important: Oral cancer hits hard among [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:46:11-07:00September, 2005|OCF In The News|

The role of the dental professional

7/26/2005 Patti DeGrangi, RDH, BS RDH Magazine, September 2005 Humble beginnings often wind their way down unexpected paths toward unthink-able destinations. Ribbons we wear, rib-bons on our cars, and wristbands have become not only methods to bring aware-ness of various cancers and causes; they have become a fad of nearly epic proportions. Discovering the history of the ribbon craze is tricky, with different groups and individuals taking credit. Some give credit to the black armbands worn in Victorian times or the yellow ribbons from the Tony Orlando song. But whatever the origination, these symbols can bring attention, understanding, and most importantly, funding to organizations and individuals struggling with disease. For several years, oral cancer awareness and screening has had a part in each program I give, for some very specific and personal reasons. Using my skills and intuition as a dental hygienist, I saw a suspicious area on a client. The client denied it, saying she wasn’t a smoker. The lesion was on the palate. The client said it was from eating taco chips. There was something about it that just didn’t resonate for me. I had to talk her into allowing a brush biopsy. The biopsy came back showing atypical cells; the scalpel biopsy showed early squamous cell carcinoma. The client was my sister. The good news was that we found it so early that the very early scalpel biopsy has thus far, after six years, seemed to have removed everything and there has been no recurrence. CDx Labs [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:54:18-07:00July, 2005|OCF In The News|

Crest, Wal-Mart, Henry Schein, Inc., USC Team up with Oral Cancer Foundation for Free Public Oral Cancer Screening

6/14/2005 Los Angeles, CA U.S. Newswire Volunteer dentists from the USC School of Dentistry will offer free oral cancer screenings to the public on: From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 18 At Wal-Mart located at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4101 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. Over 1500 people are expected to attend. In the first of what the Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) anticipates becoming a national outreach opportunity, Crest, Wal- Mart, and Henry Schein Inc. have teamed up with the foundation to raise awareness and the early detection of oral cancer across America. Bernard Parks, Councilmember of District 8, is scheduled to appear for an oral cancer screening. Brian Hill, Founder and Executive Director of OCF stated, "Oral cancer is not widely known to the majority of Americans, however the death rate from this cancer is higher than that of many we routinely hear about, such as cervical, prostate, or skin cancer. When we have the opportunity to get out into public venues, we are able to not only screen people for the disease, but to educate them on the risk factors and signs and symptoms of it. The end result is that people can learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of the disease in its early stages, when it is most curable." Over 30,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with oral cancer annually. Of those, only half them will be alive in five years - that equates to a death rate of one person every hour [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T21:08:27-07:00June, 2005|OCF In The News|

Screenings Can Prevent Death From Oral Cancer

6/3/2005 By Ed Edelson Forbes Nearly 40,000 lives could be saved worldwide every year through early detection of oral cancer. That's the conclusion of a new study in which health-care workers carefully examined the mouths of approximately 170,000 people in India for signs of malignancy. While the oral health of Indians differs greatly from that of Americans -- most notably because many Indians chew a cancer-causing substance called pan-tobacco -- the study results "apply to people all over the world, including those in the United States," said Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan. Sankaranarayanan is head of screening for the French-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, and lead author of the study that appears in the June 3 issue of The Lancet. That assessment sounds reasonable, agreed Dr. Sol Silverman Jr., a professor of oral medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a spokesman for the American Dental Society. "The prevalence is higher in India than in the United States, but we do have 10 cases per 100,000 population. And even in the latest statistics, only 58 percent survive for more than five years, despite all the improvements in treatment," Silverman said. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 30,000 new cases of oral cancer will be diagnosed in the United States this year, with 8,000 deaths from the malignancy. The new study included nearly 170,000 residents from 13 population clusters in the Trivandrum district of Kerala, India. Residents of seven districts were given up to three rounds of screening by [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T20:58:11-07:00June, 2005|OCF In The News|

Oral Cancer Advocate Receives Prestigious Award from New York University

5/26/2005 New York, NY US Newswire Brian Hill, founder and executive director of the non-profit Oral Cancer Foundation has received the prestigious Strusser award from the New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry. The award was presented to him at the NYU graduation ceremonies at Madison Square Garden. This award is given annually, and recognizes an individual who has excelled in public service. In the audience, Eva Grayzel Cohen, an oral cancer survivor and an individual who has spoken on public service announcements for the American Dental Association related to oral cancer commented, "I was touched at the choice of Brian Hill, an oral cancer survivor, who has visible and audible repercussions from his treatments, to receive the Strusser award. Brian Hill's presence and honor was a powerful message to the graduating doctors, that it is imperative to give all patients an oral cancer screening, because the dental profession is the first line of discovery of this disease. Their active participation in the screening process, which results in early detection and treatment, can mean the difference of life or death to a patient. While his unscripted acceptance and comments to the audience were in his usual casual style, the message was serious. Choose to be involved, choose to make a difference". When asked about the presentation Hill commented, "Receiving an award like this from an institution the caliber of NYU, in a venue like the Garden, and having the opportunity to speak to this enormous crowd, is a once in [...]

Webmaster2008-07-09T21:00:46-07:00May, 2005|OCF In The News|

My Dentist Saved My Life

5/10/2005 Dana Hudepohl Woman's Day Magazine The Oral Cancer Foundation and interviews with founder Brian Hill, and other OCF members figured heavily in an article on the early detection of oral cancer, and the need for public screenings to take place. When asked about the srtory, Hill stated " For a magazine with the national presence of Woman's Day to dedicate 3 full pages to telling this story, is a major step in increasing public awareness and literacy about this disease. The incidence of oral cancers in women has steadily increased over the last 15 years, and bringing the information related to risk factors and signs and symptoms directly to them in this manner is extremely important. The writer of the story and the magazine's editors have done a great job of exposing the facts without leaving out the important details. OCF has wroked hard to gain the cooperation of the dental community in providing opportunistic oral cancer screenings, and to finallly see the positive results of those efforts manifested in a story about a dentist who saves a life via early detection is very rewarding."

Webmaster2008-07-09T21:02:49-07:00May, 2005|OCF In The News|