radiation – Page 13 – Oral Cancer News

Swallowing exercises preserve function in head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation

Source: http://www.newsfix.ca/ Author: staff A study at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found that head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation as part of their treatment were less likely to need a feeding tube or suffer unwanted side effects such as worsening of diet or narrowing of the throat passage if they performed a set of prescribed swallowing exercises — called a “swallow preservation protocol” — during therapy. The study, conducted from 2007 to 2012, was led by Dr. Marilene Wang, a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center and professor-in-residence in the department of head and neck surgery at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. The study was published online by the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, and will appear later in the journal’s print edition. Surgery and radiation have been the traditional treatments for head and neck cancer, but with the advent of improved and targeted chemotherapy, many types of this disease are treated with chemotherapy and radiation, (chemoradiation) in the hope of preserving the tissue and structure. But, even when tissue and structure are preserved, patients do not always retain their ability to swallow naturally and normally. Most patients who receive chemoradiation have significant side effects during treatment and for a long time after recovery. Difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) is one of the most common unwanted side effects of radiation and chemoradiation, and is one of the main predictors of diminished quality of life for the patient after treatment. Wang’s study was designed to evaluate the swallow preservation [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-11-19T14:59:39-07:00November, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Michael Douglas: ‘Throat cancer’ was really tongue cancer

Source: cnn.com Author: Jen Christensen, CNN Michael Douglas never had throat cancer, as he told the press in 2010. The actor now says he had tongue cancer. Douglas said he hid the diagnosis at the urging of his doctor to protect his career. "The surgeon said, 'Let's just say it's throat cancer,' " Douglas told fellow actor Samuel L. Jackson for a segment that ran on British television as a part of Male Cancer Awareness Week. Douglas says that the doctor told him if they had to do surgery for tongue cancer, "it's not going to be pretty. You could lose part of your tongue and jaw." When Douglas first talked about his cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2010, he was on a worldwide publicity tour for the movie "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Douglas and Jackson joked that could have been the end of his acting career. Douglas said if he had surgery he could see the director saying, "What's your good side? I've got no side over here." "There really is no such thing as throat cancer per se," explained Brian Hill, an oral cancer survivor and the founder of the Oral Cancer Foundation. Douglas has taped a public service announcement to raise awareness about oral cancer for Hill's foundation. "Throat" cancer and tongue cancer are both colloquial terms that fall under the oral cancer umbrella. Throat cancer usually refers to cancerous tumors that develop in your pharynx, voice box or tonsils. Tongue cancer refers to cancerous [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-10-15T07:17:01-07:00October, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Psychosocial services underutilized by those with head and neck cancers

Source: www.healio.com Author: Allen Chen Despite high rates of depression among individuals with head and neck cancers after radiation therapy, mental health services are severely underutilized in this patient population, results of a cross-sectional analysis suggest. Allen M. Chen, MD, of the department of radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and colleagues evaluated data on 211 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. All patients underwent radiation therapy and were disease-free within at least 1 year of follow-up. Exclusion criteria included history of mood disorder, previous use of mental health services, or use of antidepressants or anxiolytics, not including sleep medications. The researchers pooled data from self-administered questionnaires to assess depression rates in these patients. The following scores were assigned to subjective responses of mood: 0, extremely depressed; 25, somewhat depressed; 50, neither in a good mood nor depressed; 75, generally good; and 100, excellent. Results suggested no differences in mean mood scores at 1 year (52), 3 years (55.7) or 5 years (62.1) after treatment. The presence of tracheostomy tube or laryngeal stoma (P=.01), gastrostomy tube dependence (P=.01) and continued smoking at the time of follow-up (P

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-09-11T08:35:36-07:00September, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Swallowing Exercises Preserve Function in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation

Source: Science DailyDate: Aug. 29, 2013 A study from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) has found that head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation as part of their treatment were less likely to suffer unwanted side effects such as worsening of diet, need for a feeding tube, or narrowing of the throat passage if they complied with a set of prescribed swallowing exercises called a swallow preservation protocol (SPP) during therapy. The five-year study was led by Dr. Marilene Wang, JCCC member, professor-in-residence in the department of head and neck surgery, UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. The study was published online ahead of print in the journal Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery on August 27, 2013. Surgery and radiation (RT) have been the traditional treatments for head and neck cancer but with the advent of improved and targeted chemotherapy many types of this disease are treated with chemotherapy and radiation (chemoradiation or CRT) in the hope of preserving the tissue and structure. Despite the sparing of critical tissue, preservation does not always translate to normal, natural swallowing ability. Most patients who receive CRT have significant side effects during treatment and for a long time after recovery. Difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) is one of the most common unwanted side effects of RT and CRT, and is one of the main predictors of decreased patient quality of life after treatment. Wang's study was designed to evaluate the SPP, in which patients had swallow therapy before, during and after radiation treatment. The effectiveness [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-09-03T14:27:18-07:00September, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Swallowing exercises shown to preserve function in head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation

Source: www.healthnewsdigest.com Author: staff A study from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) has found that head and neck cancer patients receiving radiation as part of their treatment were less likely to suffer unwanted side effects such as worsening of diet, need for a feeding tube, or narrowing of the throat passage if they complied with a set of prescribed swallowing exercises called a swallow preservation protocol (SPP) during therapy. The five-year study was led by Dr. Marilene Wang, JCCC member, professor-in-residence in the department of head and neck surgery, UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. The study was published online ahead of print in the journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery on August 27, 2013. Surgery and radiation (RT) have been the traditional treatments for head and neck cancer but with the advent of improved and targeted chemotherapy many types of this disease are treated with chemotherapy and radiation (chemoradiation or CRT) in the hope of preserving the tissue and structure. Despite the sparing of critical tissue, preservation does not always translate to normal, natural swallowing ability. Most patients who receive CRT have significant side effects during treatment and for a long time after recovery. Difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) is one of the most common unwanted side effects of RT and CRT, and is one of the main predictors of decreased patient quality of life after treatment. Wang's study was designed to evaluate the SPP, in which patients had swallow therapy before, during and after radiation treatment. The effectiveness [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-09-01T15:54:22-07:00September, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Vitamin E may have adverse effect in head and neck cancer

Source: www.newsfix.ca Author: Robert Cervin According to a clinical trial, vitamin E supplements may increase the risk of a secondary tumor in those with head and neck cancer. Previous studies have suggested that a low dietary intake of antioxidants such as vitamins E and C might be linked to an increased risk of cancer. But there is no clear evidence that taking supplements decreases the risk. Researchers in Quebec, Canada, report on a trial of vitamin E and beta-carotene, which is related to vitamin A, in patients with head and neck cancer. The patients took either supplements or placebo during radiation therapy and afterwards. The beta-carotene was stopped after a year, because a trial showed that those taking it who also smoked had an increased risk of getting lung cancer. The current trial showed that those on vitamin E were at increased risk of developing a second cancer while they were on the supplement, compared to those on placebo. But their risk was lower once the supplements had stopped. Overall, there was no difference between the two groups after eight years. These patients were at high risk anyway, so it is not really clear whether the results can be generalized to the whole population. There is clearly more research to be done before we can be clear whether vitamins can help in the fight against cancer.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-07-29T08:43:11-07:00July, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

The New Face of Oral Cancer

Source: nursing.advanceweb.comBy Jonathan BassettPosted on: April 22, 2013 For decades tobacco was the primary cause of oral cancer but a more insidious culprit has emerged. Jerry Wilck had no reason to suspect anything. Why would he? He only smoked for a couple of years and gave it up more than 40 years ago. He didn't drink excessively, didn't have a family history of cancer, and took good care of himself. In fact, maybe the only reason the 59-year-old consulted an oral surgeon about the small sore on his tongue - the result of a habit of running this particular spot along his teeth - was that there happened to be such a specialist right there in his office. Wilck was a general practice dentist in Langhorne, Pa., and particularly attuned to anomalies of the soft tissues of the mouth. His oral surgeon took no chances and ordered a biopsy. Wilck was "floored" the night in March 2005 when the lab report arrived by fax from the oral pathology department at Temple University in Philadelphia - squamous cell carcinoma. Wilck immediately consulted with John Ridge, MD, PhD, FACS, chief of head and neck surgery at Temple's Fox Chase Cancer Center. After surgical removal of part of his tongue and lymph nodes from his neck, along with a round of physical and speech therapy, Wilck is now cancer free and has full use of his jaw, throat and voice. "I was lucky," confessed Wilck, who retired from practice in 2009 and now spends a [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-06-10T12:26:21-07:00June, 2013|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Researchers discover potential biomarkers to identify patients with head and neck cancer

Published on June 1, 2013 at 4:16 AMSource: news-medical.net Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center will present data at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology on Saturday, June 1, which shows the discovery of potential biomarkers that may be used to identify patients with head and neck cancer whose tumors are unlikely to respond to treatment by the targeted therapy cetuximab-a type of monoclonal antibody. The FDA approved the drug, in combination with radiation or as a second-line drug after chemotherapy had failed, in 2006. In 2011, the drug was approved as a first-line treatment for metastatic disease, in combination with chemotherapy. "Targeted therapies should optimally be used in patients who are selected for sensitivity or the absence of sensitivity, and we've been handicapped by not knowing the resistance in head and neck cancers," says Barbara Burtness, MD, chief of head and neck medical oncology at Fox Chase and chair of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), a National Cancer Institute-funded team of researchers who organize and carry out clinical trials. Before cetuximab, head and neck cancer patients' only options were conventional platinum-based chemotherapy and radiation, says Burtness. But since tumors in different people may have different biologies, not all patients respond to same treatment in the same ways. Those whose tumors do not respond to cetuximab suffer the drug's side effects without gaining benefits. Biomarkers can help providers match appropriate treatments to disease. They may also provide inroads toward re-sensitizing tumors to treatment by [...]

Charlotte Parker2013-06-03T10:31:21-07:00June, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Michael Douglas: It took doctors nine months to figure out walnut-sized tumor at the back of my tongue was throat cancer

Source: www.nydailynews.com Author: Corky Siemaszko Michael Douglas said the tumor at the back of his tongue was the size of a walnut, but it still took doctors nine months to figure out it was throat cancer. “I knew something was wrong,” he said. “My tooth was really sore, and I thought I had an infection.” But the ear-nose-and-throat doctors and periodontists he consulted kept giving him antibiotics. “And then more antibiotics, but I still had pain,” he said. Finally, in 2010, a doctor in Montreal figured out that thing on his tongue was tumor. “Two days later, after the biopsy, the doctor called and said I had to come in,” Douglas recalled in a wide-ranging interview with New York magazine. “He told it me it was stage-four cancer. I said, ‘Stage four. Jesus.’ “And that was that. After complaining for nine months and them not finding anything, and then they told me I was stage four? That was a big day.” Douglas not only talked about his brush with mortality, he also chatted about his Hollywood comeback. He plays flamboyant piano tickler Liberace in an HBO biopic, “Behind the Candelabra,” that airs May 26. “Liberace loved sex,” he said. But the “Wall Street” star’s revelation that he had cancer sent a scare through Hollywood, where the words “stage four” were looked at as a death sentence. And for a time, Douglas looked like hell — losing 45 pounds as he subsisted on mostly on matzo ball soup as he healed. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-05-14T08:31:53-07:00May, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Lower radiation reduces xerostomia in head/neck cancer patients

Source: www.drbicuspid.com Author: DrBicuspid Staff Lowering the radiation dose to the submandibular gland of patients with head and neck cancer decreases xerostomia, according to a study presented on April 20 at the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) meeting in Geneva. Radiation oncologists at University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) showed for the first time that it is possible to reduce xerostomia in patients treated with radiotherapy for head and neck cancer if the radiation dose to a salivary gland (the submandibular gland) on the opposite side to the tumor is minimized, stated a university press release. It is the largest study yet to show a correlation between radiation doses to the submandibular glands and their output of saliva. Guidelines for the recommended maximum dose could potentially be issued for use in clinical practice to benefit patients, according to the researchers. Approximately 40% of head and neck cancer patients suffer from xerostomia in the long term, which causes problems with eating, sleeping, speech, tooth loss, and oral hygiene, leading to diminished quality of life, social isolation, and difficulty in the ability to work. Attempts to treat xerostomia and its consequences can be costly and are not very effective, the study noted. Therefore, the UMCU researchers looked at using intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) to treat the tumors and spare the submandibular gland on the opposite side of the tumor and both parotid glands. They also wanted to determine the maximum radiation dose and how the treatment would affect patients' xerostomia. They analyzed [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-04-24T12:19:16-07:00April, 2013|Oral Cancer News|