radiotherapy – Page 3 – Oral Cancer News

Long-term implant failure in patients treated for oral cancer by external radiotherapy: a retrospective monocentric study

Source: Journal of Oral Medicine and oral Surgery, JOMOS Date: October 10th, 2018 Authors: Aline Desoutter, Sophie Deneuve, Sophie-Charlotte Condamin and Anne-Gaëlle Chaux-Bodard Abstract Introduction: The placement of dental implants in irradiated bone has allowed functional rehabilitation for many oral cancer patients. Nonetheless, there is only few data about implant failure in irradiated tissues and their consequences. This retrospective study aims to highlight the rate and circumstances of implant failure. Material and method: Patients treated with external radiotherapy for oral carcinoma and who received dental implants were included. Patients reconstructed with free bone flaps were excluded. Results: Eighteen patients were included. Forty implants were placed between 2004 and 2007, 8 failed, of whom one osteoradionecrosis was observed. Time interval between radiotherapy and implantation was 44.6 (6–182) months. Mean dose was 51.8 (50–66) Gy. Discussion: In the series, the implant failure rate is 20%, which corroborates the literature's data. Failures occur more often for doses over 50 Gy. The placement of dental implant in irradiated bone leads to soft tissue complications but also increases the risk of osteoradionecrosis. The recent reimbursement of dental implants in oral cancer patients by the National Social Health system will probably increase the indications. Multidisciplinary staffs should be aware of benefit/risk ratio for each patient. Introduction Dental implants in patients treated for upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) cancers have facilitated the functional and aesthetic rehabilitation of patients whose postoperative anatomy did not allow for the placement of conventional prostheses. Several studies have been conducted and the success rates have varied [...]

Charlotte Parker2018-10-16T13:03:44-07:00October, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

Ask the Dentist: Cancer patients should be aware how radiotherapy can affect saliva

Source: www.irishnews.com Author: Lucy Stock SALIVA – we normally give little thought to our spit but we definitely notice when it's not there. Every day in the UK 31 people are diagnosed with a head and neck cancer. With increasing numbers of people undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancers there are more people living with the side-effects of not having enough saliva. Dry mouth, termed xerostomia, is common after radiotherapy. It's not only extremely uncomfortable, it makes speaking and swallowing more difficult and alters how things taste. Food can taste saltier, metallic; you can lose your sense of taste totally; and perhaps even worse, foods can taste foul, like sour milk. Not being able to chew and swallow easily can reduce how much you eat and how well you eat, leading to weight loss and poor nourishment. Saliva performs numerous jobs. It starts digestion by breaking down food and flushes food particles from between the teeth. Crucially, saliva contains minerals such as calcium and phosphate that keep teeth strong. So no saliva means that teeth decay rapidly and extensively. Even voice quality can change. Without enough saliva, bacteria and other organisms in the mouth take the opportunity to grow uncontrollably. Nasty sores and mouth infections, including yeast thrush infections, are run-of-the-mill. Luckily a dry mouth is usually a temporary nuisance that clears up in about two to eight weeks but it can take six months or longer for the salivary glands to start producing saliva again after radiotherapy ends. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-06-06T11:32:58-07:00June, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

What University of Toronto researchers are doing to help ‘devastating’ swallowing problems

Source: www.utoronto.ca Author: Jim Oldfield We swallow about 600 times a day, mostly without thinking about it. But swallowing involves dozens of muscles and nerves in the mouth, throat and esophagus, and for people who struggle with the process, the results can be devastating. Malnutrition, dehydration and social isolation are common in people with swallowing trouble. So is depression and aspiration of food that leads to pneumonia. Occasionally, swallowing issues cause choking and sudden death. And a recent U.S. study of hospitalized patients with serious illnesses found that more than half said needing a feeding tube to live was a state equal to or worse than death. Many conditions can cause swallowing problems: stroke, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, and congenital or developmental conditions such as cerebral palsy and cleft palate. People treated for head and neck cancer often develop problems, sometimes years later; and their numbers are growing as cancer survival rates improve. Estimates on the global prevalence of swallowing disorders, which collectively are known as dysphagia, are about eight per cent – almost 600 million people. But there is good news. Before 1980, most patients with complex dysphagia got feeding tubes; today, clinicians can offer videofluoroscopy and other bedside tests to better assess swallowing problems, and less invasive therapies that emphasize exercise and posture. And at the University of Toronto, scientists in the department of speech-language pathology and related fields are starting to answer long-standing questions such as how best to give dysphagia screening tests, which interventions work [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2018-04-11T10:46:01-07:00April, 2018|Oral Cancer News|

UK cancer patient receives new jaw thanks to 3D printing

Source: http://www.3ders.org/ Author: staff 3D printing techniques are being adopted with increasing regularity in surgery of all kinds, and more and more patients are seeing a hugely improved quality of life thanks to the unique benefits of the technology. The most recent success story took place in the UK, where a patient’s jawbone was entirely reconstructed using bone from his leg. The pioneering surgical procedure made use of 3D printing at various different stages. Stephen Waterhouse was diagnosed with throat cancer eight years ago, and underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy in order to fight it. The treatments were a great success and his cancer went away, but they had an unfortunate side effect. His jawbone had started to crumble, and emergency surgery was required before it completely disintegrated. The 53-year-old was taken to Royal Stoke University Hospital, which had purchased a new 3D printer just two years previously. Costing the hospital trust around £150,000 (about $188K), the machine is the only one of its kind in the country, and was a crucial part of the effort to save the patient’s jawbone. A 3D model was designed from a scan of his remaining intact jaw and printed out as a mold, which was then used to reconstruct the jaw using bone taken from his fibula. The operation lasted around 12 hours and was a great success. According to Daya Gahir, consultant in maxillofacial and head and neck surgery, the hospital does "at least 40 major head and neck reconstructions per year. Around [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-03-24T12:15:15-07:00March, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Artificial larynx implant helps throat cancer patient breathe and speak

Source: www.ctvnews.ca Author: staff Sixteen months after receiving an artificial larynx, a 56-year-old French man suffering from throat cancer can now whisper and breathe normally. A report published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine considers this to be a significant first achievement. Thanks to the implant, a 56-year-old throat cancer patient can now whisper and breathe normally. © ChrisChrisW / Istock.com This is the first time that doctors have observed a patient with the implant long term recover functions such as breathing and speaking after the complete removal of the larynx. Thanks to an artificial voice box, implanted in 2015 at France's Strasbourg-Hautepierre university hospital, the 56-year-old Frenchman, who lives in Alsace, can now whisper in a comprehensible manner and breathe normally. The patient has also recovered his sense of smell, which was damaged by the removal of the larynx. Other than the vocal cords, the larynx features an upper valve, called the epiglottis, which closes when food passes down the throat to prevent it from entering the windpipe. The prosthetic larynx was developed by a French company called Protip Médical. It consists of a rigid titanium and silicone structure replacing the larynx and a removable titanium part that mimics the function of the epiglottis. The only problem that remains unresolved in the implant is the function of the epiglottis. As a result, the patient coughs from time to time when eating, as food accidentally enters the windpipe. However, the surgeons still consider the functioning implant [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2017-01-11T09:41:28-07:00January, 2017|Oral Cancer News|

Google and UCLH to develop AI to improve cancer therapies

Source: www.phgfoundation.org Author: Julian Harris Google’s Artificial Intelligence research group announced a new partnership with University College London Hospitals, applying machine learning to radiotherapy treatment for head and neck cancer. The new partnership is the third since the launch of DeepMind’s health division in February 2016. The partnership aims to assist clinicians in the segmentation process – designating which areas of the body to target with radiotherapy – which in the case of head and neck cancer is highly time consuming, taking around four hours. The agreement will give DeepMind access to the anonymised scans of around 700 patients, as well as the expertise of UCLH’s world leading team at their specialised head and neck cancer centre. Google DeepMind hopes to utilise machine learning to make the planning of radiotherapy treatment more efficient and reduce the duration of the segmentation process. Ultimately , clinicians will still be responsible for deciding on treatment plans, but the reduced workload will free up their time to focus on patient care. If successful, the team hope that they will be able to adapt their segmentation algorithm to other parts of the body and other cancers which can also be treated with radiotherapy. Machine learning continues to be a promising new area of health technology, with the potential to provide novel solutions to a range of problems in healthcare. In the UCLH press release, the Co-Founder of DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman said that "this real-world application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is exactly why we set [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2016-09-05T06:10:59-07:00September, 2016|Oral Cancer News|

Follow-up by advance practice nurses improves care for patients with head, neck cancer

Source: www.healio.com Author: Anthony SanFilippo The launch of an advance practice nurse outpatient follow-up clinic improved symptom management for high-risk patients with head and neck cancer following radiation therapy, according to findings from a study conducted at Cleveland Clinic. This initiative led to fewer ED visits and hospital admissions, results showed. “These results are significant as they suggest more intensive follow up in high-risk head and neck patients can improve patient outcomes,” Bridgett Harr, CNP, of the department of radiation oncology at Cleveland Clinic, told HemOnc Today. “This intensive symptom management is an important role [advance practice nurses (APNs)] can fill in this and other patient groups by providing consistent, proactive management of symptoms during recovery from treatment. Our study suggests this will lead to improved patient experience, in addition to a reduction in cost to both the patient and health care system as a whole.” Patients with head and neck cancer often undergo radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy, and many experience debilitating side effects that require ED management or admission to the hospital. In 2014, an APN-led clinic was launched to focus on the acute rehabilitation of patients with head and neck cancer undergoing these therapies. Harr and colleagues sought to evaluate the outcomes and incidence of adverse events among patients treated at an APN clinic compared with historical outcomes. The analysis included data from 25 high-risk patients with head and neck cancer who received care post-treatment at an APN clinic and 24 patients who received standard follow-up care identified using [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-11-03T10:14:55-07:00November, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Less Is More for HPV Oropharyngeal Cancer Reduced-intensity regimen clears disease in 86% of cases

Source: www.medpagetoday.comAuthor: Charles Bankhead SAN ANTONIO -- Less intense treatment of low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal cancer achieved a high rate of pathologic complete response (pCR) and favorable patient-reported outcomes, a preliminary trial showed. Overall, 37 of 43 (86%) patients achieved pCR with deintensified chemoradiation, including all but one evaluable primary tumor. The pCR rate was virtually identical to historical rates achieved with standard regimens, according to Bhishamjit Chera, MD, of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and colleagues. Selected patient-reported adverse events peaked during the first 6 to 8 weeks and then declined thereafter. About 40% of patients required feeding tubes for a median duration of 15 weeks, but no patients required permanent feeding tubes, they reported here at the American Society for Radiation Oncology meeting. The regimen consists of lower doses of radiotherapy and concurrent cisplatin, administered over 6 weeks. With high-dose therapy, the radiation protocol requires an additional week. "Though we have limited follow-up, the pathological complete response rate with this reduced-intensity chemoradiotherapy regimen is very high in patients with favorable-risk oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma," Chera said. "The early quality-of-life measurements are encouraging, particularly the data on swallowing. We are optimistic that these results with reduced-intensity treatment will translate into good long-term disease control with less toxicity." The study reflects the current trend and momentum in the management of HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, said Zain Husain, MD, of Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Conn. "This is the second study to show that de-escalation of therapy might [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-10-21T14:59:53-07:00October, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Imaging method has potential to stratify head and neck cancer patients

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: press release Manchester researchers have identified a potential new way to predict which patients with head and neck cancer may benefit most from chemotherapy. These patients commonly receive pre-treatment induction chemotherapy, before either surgery or radiotherapy, to reduce the risk of disease spread. However the effectiveness of such treatment is reduced in tumours with poor blood flow. Previous studies have shown that CT scans can be used to assess tumour blood flow. Now researchers at The University of Manchester and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust - both part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre - have explored the use of MRI scans in predicting which patients would benefit from induction chemotherapy. Professor Catharine West, who led the study, said: "It's also important to identify those patients who are unlikely to respond to induction therapy so that we can skip ahead in the treatment pathway and offer them potentially more effective treatments and hopefully improve their outcome." The team used an imaging technique known as dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), where a contrast agent tracer is injected into a patient's vein whilst they have a series of MRI scans taken. This allows scientists and doctors to investigate the blood flow and vessel structure of a patient's tumour. They found that the blood flow of a patient's tumour before they received induction therapy could predict response to treatment. In a paper recently published in the journal Oral Oncology, the group report that those with high tumour blood flow were more [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-09-19T08:39:53-07:00September, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

AstraZeneca joins the world of immunotherapy against cancer

Source: www.youthhealthmag.com Author: staff Cancer drug companies have been fighting lately in a completely different and interesting arena: immunotherapy. The competition is indeed heating up that firms such as AstraZeneca are willing to pay millions of dollars for promising treatments. AstraZeneca, through its research company called MedImmune, has just recently announced its decision to purchase a novel drug INO-3112 from Inovio, based in Pennsylvania, for a staggering price tag of $727 million. INO-3112 is a drug for immunotherapy, a new way of combating cancer by boosting the body's immune system. This then allows the antibodies and specific cells to fight off the tumor. The treatment may also provide synthetic proteins to boost the body's fighting chance. MedImmune believes that with the proper immunotherapy protocol for the patient, conventional methods such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which have plenty of serious risks, can now be significantly reduced, if not eliminated. In fact, patients may no longer have to go through surgery, which is a common first-line treatment. While AstraZeneca already has immunotherapy products in the market, the acquisition of INO-3112 will make it an instrument for combination therapies. As for Inovio, the drug, which is still not approved, is currently in the advanced stages of the clinical trials. It will be intended for treating head and neck cancers, as well as cervical cancer. While there are already cervical cancer vaccines, they cite the rather poor record of them. Their drug, on the other hand, will work on modifying DNA sequencing that will [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-08-13T07:39:58-07:00August, 2015|Oral Cancer News|