recurrence – Page 4 – Oral Cancer News

Radiotherapy technique significantly reduces irradiation of healthy tissue

Source: www.sciencecodex.com/ Author: staff Researchers at the University of Granada and the university hospital Virgen de las Nieves in Granada have developed a new radiotherapy technique that is much less toxic than that traditionally used and only targets cancerous tissue. This new protocol provides a less invasive but equally efficient cancer postoperative treatment for cases of cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx. The study -conducted between 2005 and 2008- included 80 patients diagnosed with epidermoid cancer of the oral cavity and pharynx, who had undergone lymph node removal. The affected nodes were located by the surgeon during the intervention and classified into different risk levels. Classification allowed physicians to target the areas at a higher risk of recurrence. This way, neck areas at a lower risk of containing residual cancer cells were not irradiated. Researchers achieved both to minimize the side effects of radiotherapy, and to reduce treatment discontinuation, thus achieving the therapy to be more effective. A Highly Toxic Treatment Over 70% of oral and pharynx cancer treated with surgery require supplementary treatment with radiotherapy occasionally associated to chemotherapy, because of the high risk for recurrence and spread through the lymph nodes. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are highly toxic, mainly due to the ulceration of the mucous membranes lining the oral cavity; toxicity leads may patients to stop the treatment, which significantly reduces the chances of cure. By using the risk map obtained with the collaboration of the surgeon and the pathologist, an individualized treatment was designed and adapted [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2012-02-26T09:44:04-07:00February, 2012|Oral Cancer News|

Study findings may change surgical practice

Source: www.digitaljournal.com Author: press release Currently, about 30 per cent of patients who receive oral surgery have their cancer recur. But a new, Canada-wide surgical trial using a new approach to remove tumours and pre-cancerous cells from the mouths of those diagnosed with early-stage oral cancer offers new hope for patients. The Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) announces the launch of a $4.7 million Pan-Canadian Phase III clinical trial aimed at improving outcomes for patients undergoing surgery for oral squamous cell cancers. The Canadian Optically Guided Approach for Oral Lesions Surgical Trial (The COOLS Study) has the potential to revolutionize clinical practice here and around the world for this kind of cancer. "Our investment in this promising study is our response to a serious clinical concern expressed by head and neck surgeons across Canada and it has the potential to change surgical practices for cancer of the mouth nationally and internationally," said Dr. Victor Ling, TFRI President and Scientific Director. Using a new surgical approach guided by an existing hand-held light tool, the surgeons, pathologists, and scientists involved in this nine-centre study will determine whether recurrence is reduced when they shift the surgical field for the removal of tumours or pre-cancerous cells in the mouth. The surgeons will use fluorescence visualization (FV) or "blue light" provided by the optical aid rather than traditional white light to determine the tissue to be removed. Under the blue light, normal tissue generates a fluorescence which is absent in tumour or pre-cancerous tissue. The [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-27T05:26:01-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Blue light tool could save lives of patients suffering from oral cancer

Source: www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress Author: Camille Bains, The Canadian Press A device that emits a blue light is giving patients undergoing surgery for oral cancer a fighting chance at survival and Canada is at the forefront of research that could have a global impact, researchers say. Doctors and scientists in nine Canadian cities began testing the tool last September as part of a five-year study on 400 patients who are suffering from cancer that has afflicted their tongue or other parts of the mouth. The hand-held fluorescence visualization tool allows surgeons to see cancer cells that can't be detected by conventional white light so they can remove the affected tissue and prevent the disease from recurring. Balvir Dhadda, 47, thought she'd been given a death sentence when she was diagnosed with the deadly disease four years ago after developing a sore underneath the left side of her tongue. "When I got diagnosed, I thought `That's it.'" But Dhadda credits the blue light device for saving her life. "This was the tool used on me, and the rest is history," Dhadda said Thursday. The tool ensured doctors removed only the tissue that was cancerous, rather than the usual practice of removing parts that might potentially be. "I think it was a major factor in the time it took me to recover afterwards," said Dhadda, of Surrey, B.C. Miriam Rosin, the principle investigator of the study, said the blue-light tool developed at the BC Cancer Agency had been used to detect lung, cervical and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-27T05:25:36-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

University of Michigan scientists are at the forefront of cancer stem cell research

Source: www.annarbor.com Author: Betsy de Parry Nine years ago, I walked into the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center for the first time and walked out as a terrified cancer patient. During all the months that I was in treatment, I never saw the labs or gave a thought to the research that was being conducted in them. And then, when standard treatment failed to stop my cancer, I was rescued by a new therapy that was pioneered at U-M by Dr. Mark Kaminski, and I began to appreciate those labs we patients never see and the discoveries that are made in them. Discoveries, after all, save lives. Indeed, labs are hotbeds of discovery. And the labs at Michigan are turning out stem cell research that is revolutionizing the way many cancers are treated. I know — stem cells are two words that stir passion and debate, but there are stem cells... and there are stem cells. What distinguishes them from other cells is their ability to divide and make exact copies of themselves indefinitely, a process called self-renewal, and their ability to change, or differentiate, into other types of cells. Embryonic stem cells — the controversial ones — have unlimited potential to become any type of cell. Adult stem cells — with which we're born — are more restricted than embryonic stem cells in terms of what they can become, but they can still differentiate. For example, adult stem cells in our bone marrow, known as hematopoietic cells, constantly [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-07T05:34:43-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cel-Sci to bump standard of care in head, neck cancer

Source: www.bioworld.com Author: Catherine Shaffer Cel-Sci Corp. began a carefully designed Phase III trial of Multikine, its investigational immunotherapy for head and neck cancer. Because Multikine is designed to recruit the support of a mostly healthy immune system, Cel-Sci is making a headlong charge at the goal of first-line therapy, instead of trying to develop the product in patients who have already received surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, and have suppressed or damaged immune systems as a result. If Cel-Sci can prove the therapy works in the narrow three-week testing window granted by the FDA, Multikine stands to replace a standard of care that has changed little in half a century. "It makes no sense to develop an immunotherapy product for late-stage patients. You should develop it as a first line therapy, ahead of radiation or chemotherapy," Cel-Sci CEO Geert Kersten told BioWorld Today. Vienna, Va.-based Cel-Sci's clinical trial plan takes advantage of a nearly inevitable delay of up to six weeks between diagnosis and surgery in most head and neck cancers. The FDA has allowed Cel-Sci a three-week period to give Multikine to patients before they commence with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. This will not deprive any patients of the best possible standard-of-care while they also try an experimental therapy. Head and neck cancer strikes about 500,000 people annually worldwide. Some causal factors include smoking, drinking and chewing tobacco. Most cases are diagnosed outside the U.S., and about two-thirds of patients appear with advanced disease. The standard treatment for it [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-12-30T16:16:36-07:00December, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Recurrence of oral cancer found to signal poor outcome

Source: health.usnews.com Author: staff How people fare when oral cancer recurs depends on where and when the cancer returns, a new study has found. The research included 77 people in Australia who'd had oral squamous cell carcinoma, a cancer that occurs in the thin, flat cells that line the lips and mouth. The cancer was treated with surgery, radiation or both. However, the cancer came back, and they all subsequently had what's called salvage surgery, which is a procedure to remove cancer after an initial treatment fails. The researchers found that people whose cancer recurred at the same site as the initial cancer tended to do worse if the disease returned within six months, whereas those with recurrence at a different site did worse if their cancer came back after six months or more. The overall five-year survival rate after salvage surgery was 50 percent. People who had initially had both surgery and radiation were 1.3 times as likely to die, the investigators found. The median, or midpoint, in time to recurrence was 7.5 months after treatment, and 86 percent of the recurrences occurred within 24 months, the study found. Recurrence occurred at the initial site in 39 people, in the neck on the same side as their initial cancer in 27 people and in the neck on the opposite side in 11 people. "Presumably, the poor outcome reflects a combination of more advanced disease at initial presentation, resistant tumor biology and limited salvage options," wrote Michael D. Kernohan and [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-12-27T16:16:26-07:00December, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Study suggests VELscope can help reduce recurrence of oral cancer

Source: www.dentaleconomics.com Author: staff LED Dental has announced a recent study suggests that its VELscope screening system can help surgeons reduce the recurrence rate for oral cancer following surgery. The article, "Tracing the 'At-Risk' Oral Mucosa Field with Autofluorescence: Steps Toward Clinical Impact," was just published in the journal, Cancer Prevention Research. The article was was authored by Catherine F. Poh, Calum E. MacAulay, and Miriam Rosin of the BC Cancer Agency and Lewei Zhang of the University of British Columbia. The study was prompted by numerous previous studies that showed oral cancer recurs in a significant percentage of patients following oral cancer surgery. The study examined the experience of 60 oral cancer surgery patients between 2004 and 2008. Their cancerous lesions were treated with surgical excision alone with a minimum follow-up time of 12 months. For 38 of the 60 patients, the surgeon used a surgical margin that was 10 mm beyond the tumor edge defined by the VELscope exam. Because the VELscope system utilizes fluorescence visualization, or FV, technology, these patients are described in the article as having had FV-guided surgery. The remaining 22 patients--the control group--did not have FV-guided surgery. Instead, the surgeon used a surgical margin that was 10 mm beyond the tumor edge defined by the standard white-light exam. White light exams rely on visual inspection with the naked eye, whereas the VELscope system allows clinicians to discover cancerous and precancerous tissue that might not be apparent to the naked eye. Four years into the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-18T22:37:36-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Genetic variations indicate risk of recurrence, secondary cancer among head and neck cancer patients

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: public release Eighteen single-point genetic variations indicate risk of recurrence for early-stage head and neck cancer patients and their likelihood of developing a second type of cancer, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference. The team examined 241 single nucleotide polymorphisms - variations of a single DNA building block in a gene - in eight genes involved in the creation of micro RNA (miRNA), small bits of RNA that regulate genes, and 130 miRNA binding sites on host genes where miRNAs exert their effects on regulating gene expression. "We focus on miRNA pathways because these small molecules regulate between one third and half of genes," said senior author Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Epidemiology in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences. "Genetic variations in miRNA biogenesis genes and miRNA binding sites have been associated with the risk of having multiple solid tumors, so we hypothesized that these variations might be associated with the risk of recurrence or secondary primary tumors in these patients," Wu said. About 10 percent of patients have a recurrence, and 15-25 percent go on to develop secondary primary tumors. The team conducted a case-control study of 150 patients with recurrence or a second cancer and 300 patients without either. They found eighteen SNPs to be associated with recurrence/secondary cancer risk, including eleven SNPs in three miRNA biogenesis [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-12-08T18:30:22-07:00December, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

A 25-year analysis of veterans treated for tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma

Source: Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg, November 1, 2009; 135(11) Authors: JJ Jaber et al. Objective: To determine the recurrence and survival outcome based on treatment date, type of treatment, stage of disease, and comorbidity and the recurrence and survival differences based on smoking status as a surrogate for human papillomavirus status in veterans treated for tonsillar squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Design: Outcome cohort study. Setting: Tertiary care Department of Veterans Affairs hospital. Patients: A consecutive sample from 1981 through 2006 of 683 patients treated for oropharyngeal SCC was screened, and 141 patients with tonsillar SCC without distant metastatic spread and a minimum of 2 years of follow-up were included. Main outcome measures: Disease-free survival (DFS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and overall survival (OS). Results: Disease-free survival was significantly better in cohort II (treated during or after 1997) compared with cohort I (treated before 1997) (2- and 5-year DFS, 82% vs 64% and 67% vs 48%; P = .02). Disease-specific survival was better in the surgical vs nonsurgical group (2- and 5-year DSS, 77% vs 46% and 67% vs 30%; P

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-11-28T08:01:30-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Post-treatment pain in head and neck cancer patients may be associated with recurrence, lower survival rate

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: staff Patients with head and neck cancer who experience a higher level of post-treatment pain appear to have a lower survival rate than those who experience little or no post-treatment pain, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Pain is an important but infrequently analyzed symptom in head and neck cancer and may play a predictive role in recurrence and survivorship outcomes," according to background information in the article. "Failure to investigate substantial changes in pain symptoms or new-onset pain that develops following treatment may potentially delay the diagnosis of recurrent disease." Joseph Scharpf, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, examined results from 339 patients who participated in the Department of Otolaryngology's Outcomes Assessment Project, conducted between 1998 and 2001. Participants provided information about their health and quality of life at diagnosis and three, six, nine and 12 months later. Participants also rated their post-treatment pain at follow-up. Of the 339 patients, 233 were men (68.7 percent) with an average age of 60.8. "Most had primary disease (84.4 percent), advanced-stage disease (59.9 percent) and oral cavity (42.2 percent) or laryngeal (23.3 percent) tumors. Most received surgical treatment alone (37.2 percent) or combined with radiotherapy," the authors write. "Pain was associated with age, general physical and mental health conditions, depressive symptoms, survival rate and recurrence within the first year," the authors note. "The five-year survival rate was 81.8 percent for patients [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-08-18T17:58:16-07:00August, 2009|Oral Cancer News|