radiation – Page 23 – Oral Cancer News

Zometa aids patients with head and neck cancer

Source: DrBicuspid.com Zoledronic acid, a drug currently approved for osteoporosis treatment, has been shown to reduce bone loss in a study of mice with oral cancer, suggesting it could serve as a supplemental therapy in patients with head and neck cancers that erode bone (Cancer Research, November 1, 2010, Vol. 70:21, pp. 8607-8616). The drug, known by the brand name Zometa, is designed to inhibit bone resorption. Oral squamous cell carcinoma accounts for about 90% of all tumors in the mouth, according to the National Cancer Institute. The five-year survival rate for this form of cancer is 61% for all stages combined. When these tumors form in the gums, their growth in the mouth leads to bone loss in the jaw. In turn, bone erosion stimulates the cancer to grow. Scientists call this phenomenon, driven in part by the release of cancer stimulatory compounds from bone, a vicious cycle that occurs in this and other forms of cancer. Even though the bone loss itself is not life-threatening, loss of bone means the tumor is continuing to grow. "The goal is to stop the vicious cycle," said Thomas Rosol, DVM, PhD, professor of veterinary biosciences at Ohio State, in a press release. "Chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery are all used to treat head and neck cancers. Zoledronic acid is a very safe drug and all it does is block bone resorption, so patients could receive all of the standard treatments, and this drug could be added as an additional benefit. That's the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-12-15T11:16:48-07:00December, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

UC cancer drug trials offer lone hope

Source: news.cincinnati.com Author: Peggy O'Farrell Two years ago this month, Pam Cain learned the bump on her tongue was really cancer. Last year, she learned the "bump" had spread to both lungs. "Last November, I was given two years if I only did chemo," she said. So she underwent radiation therapy. But the lesions on her lungs stayed put, and the cancer spread to one hip. So far, three chemotherapy combinations failed to kill her cancer. Now Cain, 32, of Union is hoping an experimental targeted therapy will knock out her cancer. She was the second patient in the United States to receive the experimental drug, and one of about five patients now enrolled in four clinical trials for new cancer therapies at the University of Cincinnati. The phase 1 trials are part of UC's effort to raise its profile for cancer treatment and research. Phase 1 trials are the earliest stage of testing new medications or medical devices on humans. They're designed to determine if a new treatment is safe, not whether it works. For patients like Cain, who have run out of tried-and-true options, it means being able to get cutting-edge treatments close to home. "This way, I didn't have to leave my kids," she said. "I didn't have to travel. I didn't have to go someplace where I didn't know anybody. And financially, it would have hurt." For the researchers and physicians who conduct the trials, it's an opportunity to help find the next wonder drug. Olivier [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-11-07T09:41:21-07:00November, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer diagnosis keeps Fioretti out of mayor’s race

An upbeat Ald. Robert Fioretti, 2nd, announced Tuesday he has cancer and will not run for mayor of Chicago, but will be running for re-election in his ward. "I'm not afraid of the fight, and although I couldn't expect this one, I'm going to give it all I've got," Fioretti said. Fioretti, 57, is a first-term alderman who has differed with Mayor Richard Daley on budget issues. He was the only alderman still expected to get into the race for mayor, at least until Sheriff Tom Dart's surprise announcement last week that he would not run. Because he was expected to run for mayor and not alderman, Fioretti could find himself facing competition in a re-election effort for his booming 2nd Ward, which includes part of the Loop and areas on the Near Southwest and Northwest Sides. Fioretti said he does not know who he will support in the mayoral elections, but that he has been contacted by four candidates in the past few days, some of whom have asked to meet with him. "I will be sitting down in the next couple of weeks with some of the candidates once they qualify or once they submit their petitions to be on the ballot," Fioretti said. Dr. Steven DeAngeles, Fioretti's doctor, said that the alderman has stage III cancer of the tonsils but that the prognosis for his recovery is good. The form of cancer is fairly rare, DeAngeles said, and may have been caused by genetic predisposition or environmental [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-11-03T10:03:34-07:00November, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Survival of dental implants in irradiated head and neck cancer patients: a retrospective analysis

Source: HighWire, Stanford University By: A Buddula, DA Assad, TJ Salinas, YI Garces, JE Vloz and AL Weaver Purpose: To study the long-term survival of dental implants placed in irradiated bone in subjects who received radiation for head and neck cancer. Materials and Method: A retrospective chart review was conducted for all patients who received dental implants following radiation treatment for head and neck cancer between May 1, 1987 through July 1, 2008. Only patients irradiated with a radiation dose of 50?Gy or greater and those who received dental implants in the irradiated field after head and neck radiation were included in the study. The associations between implant survival and patient/implant characteristics were estimated by fitting univariate marginal Cox proportional hazards models. Results: A total of 48 patients who had prior head and neck radiation had 271 dental implants placed during May 1987 to July 2008. The estimated survival at 1, 5, and 10 years was 98.9%, 89.9%, and 72.3%, respectively. Implants placed in the maxilla were more likely to fail than implants placed in the mandible.There was also a tendency for implants placed in the posterior region to fail compared with those placed in the anterior region. Conclusion: Dental implants placed in irradiated bone have a greater risk for failure. Survival is significantly influenced by the location of the implant (maxilla or mandible, anterior or posterior).

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-11-07T08:23:58-07:00November, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

The Major Component In Tumeric Enhances The Effect Of Chemotherapy In Suppressing Head And Neck Cancers

Curcumin, the major component in the spice turmeric, when combined with the drug Cisplatin enhances the chemotherapy's suppression of head and neck cancer cell growth, researchers with UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center have found. A naturally occurring spice widely used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking, Turmeric has long been known to have medicinal properties, attributed to its anti-inflammatory effects. Previous studies have shown it can suppress the growth of certain cancers, said Dr. Marilene Wang, a professor of head and neck surgery, lead author of the study and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher. "Head and neck cancers, particularly cases diagnosed in a later stage, are terrible cancers that often require very radical surgeries and chemotherapy and radiation," Wang said. "They often don't present until late, and the structures in the head and neck are so vital that our treatments often cause disfigurement and severe loss of function. So using non-toxic curcumin as a treatment was a very appealing idea." The study, done in cells in Petri dishes and then in mouse models, appears in the October issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. In India, women for years have been using turmeric for medicinal purposes, as an anti-aging agent rubbed into their skin, to treat cramps during menstruation, as a poultice on the skin to promote wound healing and as an additive in cosmetics, said scientist Eri Srivatsan, an adjunct professor of surgery and a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher who, along with Wang, has been studying curcumin and its [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-10-21T15:06:19-07:00October, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

‘I like my odds’ against cancer, Michael Douglas says

By Donna Freydkin Source:USA TODAY NEW YORK— They don'tmake'em like Michael Douglas anymore. In this age of crass reality upstarts and pampered starlets, he's a movie star of the old school. And even in his third week of grueling radiation treatments for Stage IV throat cancer, Douglas is a gentleman first, making sure a guest is comfortable on the green sofa in his family room and apologizing repeatedly for being a little off his game after a particularly brutal radiation session this morning. He hasn't pondered the meaning of life yet, or gone on any soul-searching journeys to faraway lands. "I like my odds. I'm not dealing with mortality issues until they tell me, 'Oops, we have to go back and do surgery' or something like that," Douglas says. "The tumor is shrinking. The odds are good." He pauses a beat, smiles, and takes a sip of the aloe-infused water he's drinking to soothe his throat. "I haven't found God yet." There's no woe-is-me self-pity as Douglas manages to poke fun at his condition. "There's never a really great time for cancer, but this is one for the books," he cracks. "Actually I was doing really good, but today has not been great." It has been a doozy of a year for Douglas, 65, full of highs and staggering lows. After little-seen turns in 2009's Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and 2007's King of California, he earned positive reviews for playing a sleazy seducer in this year's intimate drama Solitary Man. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-09-10T21:33:53-07:00September, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Michael Douglas talks cancer with Letterman: stage 4, 80% odds

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com Author: staff Michael Douglas says he faces an "eight-week struggle" against throat cancer but is optimistic about his chances for recovery. During an appearance Tuesday on David Letterman's "Late Show," the actor said he had just finished his first week of radiation and chemotherapy. That drew a surprised reaction from Letterman. "You've never looked better to me, and this proves that you're a tough guy, for God's sakes," the talk-show host said, drawing cheers from the studio audience, according to a CBS news release. "Let's just say ... I'm pretty lit up right now," Douglas replied. The disease was diagnosed three weeks ago, he said, although he had complained of a very sore throat earlier this year and had undergone testing that failed to find a cause. Douglas, 65, who has two children with Catherine Zeta-Jones, said he enjoyed the summer traveling with his family before returning to the doctor. A biopsy found he had late, stage-four cancer, "which is intense, and so they've had to go at it," he said. However, Douglas said, the cancer remains above the neck and that means expectations are good, with an 80 percent or better chance of recovery. Asked by Letterman about his personal habits, he said he had smoked and consumed alcohol. According to a National Institutes of Health website, use of tobacco or alcohol are among the factors that put people at risk of developing throat cancer. Combining tobacco and drinking increases the risk. Most throat cancer develops in [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-09-01T13:10:43-07:00September, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New cancer radiation technology improves accuracy, drops treatment time in select patients

Source: Medical News Today Author: Staff The Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center is among the world's first to begin using radiation technology that dramatically reduces treatment times. UAB's Hazelrig-Salter Radiation Oncology Center is the third U.S. site to acquire TrueBeam technology. TrueBeam, by Varian Medical Systems Inc., can complete a standard 40-minute radiation therapy in less than a minute for select patients. The precision of the instrument, measured in increments of less than a millimeter, comes from real-time patient imaging, positioning, beam shaping and many other data points synchronized continually as treatment progresses. "This technology gives us the tools we need to shrink the number of treatment visits for some patients from weeks to days," says James A. Bonner, M.D., chair of UAB's Department of Radiation Oncology and a senior advisor at the Cancer Center. "Patients coming to UAB can expect leading-edge care with more options for fightingcancer and, hopefully, improved chances for survival." TrueBeam made its debut in the United States earlier in 2010 at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. TrueBeam can be used to treat tumors anywhere in the body where radiation treatment is indicated. The technology opens the door to new treatment plans and improved quality of life in patients who have challenging cancers such as in the lung, breast, abdomen and head and neck, as well as cancers that are treated with radiotherapy. However, the technology is still [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-08-22T12:38:34-07:00August, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Marathon man: 75-year old-resident still running after all these years

Source: www.hudsonreporter.com Author: E. Assata Wright Don’t tell 75-year-old marathon runner Leslie Mayer he’s “amazing” for training for the upcoming Damon Runyon 5K Run, a cancer research benefit to be held Sunday, Aug. 15 at Yankee Stadium. And don’t tell him it’s “incredible” that he’s still active and fit “at his age.” “Let me tell you, there are people my age, people older than me, who can run in half the time I do,” he said. “There’s a 5K race in Teterboro, near the airport, and there was a man there, 70 years old, and he ran the race at 7 minutes and 48 seconds a mile. And he beat a friend of mine who is 53 years old by 10 seconds.” Mayer, a Secaucus resident for the past decade, has been running for about 35 years, and has used long distance running to help him deal with everything from problems at work to his own recent battle with cancer. “I found that running, even though it’s a serious exercise, it enables you to release all tension and stress, and enables you to do a lot of thinking and clear your mind. It’s the only sport where you’re really competing with yourself, because you’re challenging yourself to run faster at better times that you’ve done before. And you’re also challenging yourself to run farther distances.” Running is therapeutic Mayer, who works at a car dealership in Paramus, said he first discovered running years ago when he was working in New [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-08-01T14:54:17-07:00August, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Simulation of scattering dffects of irradiation on surroundings using the example of titanium dental implants: a Monte Carlo approach

Source: International Journal of Cancer Research and Treatment Authors: REINHARD E. FRIEDRICH1, MANUEL TODROVIC2 and ANDREAS KRÜLL2 Correspondence to: Professor R.E. Friedrich, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Eppendorf Medical Center, University of Hamburg, Martinist. 52, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Tel: +49 40428033259, Fax: +49 428038120, email:[email protected] Abstract Occasionally, head and neck cancer patients treated with high-energy X-rays and gamma rays have titanium dental implants. The aim of this study was to calculate alterations in the irradiated bone caused by a foreign body, representing a titanium implant in size and physical qualities, using a stochastic (Monte Carlo) simulation. A clinical linear accelerator was simulated using BEAM/EGS4. The calculations showed that the presence of an implant results in differences of the dose distribution all around the implant. Titanium dental implants in the field of irradiation were capable of causing significant radiation scattering. The risk for dose enhancement was notably important for the bone in direct contact with the foreign body. Therapists involved in radiation planning should consider the impact of dental implants on the radiation beam as a putative cause of osteoradionecrosis.

Charlotte Parker2010-07-01T14:56:38-07:00July, 2010|Oral Cancer News|