smoking

Fighting throat cancer with T cells

Source: www.miragenews.com Author: press release, Centenary Institute Research led by the Centenary Institute has discovered that immune cells accumulating within the tumor environment, called tumor-resident T cells, are a critical determinant in survival rates of patients suffering from throat cancer. Reported in the prestigious ‘Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer’, the research suggests that strategies aiming to boost these T-cells at tumor sites could be beneficial to patients. “Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is a form of throat cancer. It can be caused by environmental factors such as smoking or by human papillomavirus infection (HPV), the same virus that causes cervical cancer in women,” said Ms Rehana Hewavisenti, lead author of the study and researcher at the Centenary Institute and the University of Sydney. “We knew that patients with HPV-related OPSCC had far better clinical outcomes compared to other OPSCC patients but we didn’t know why,” she said. In examining over sixty patient samples, Ms Hewavisenti and her colleagues discovered that increased levels of tumor-resident T cells, whether in HPV or non-HPV OPSCC cases, was clearly associated with improved patient survival outcomes. “It was the accumulation of these immune T-cells, in and around the tumour site that appeared to be key,” said Ms Hewavisenti. The researchers also found in their study that HPV OPSCC patients generally had far higher levels of tumour-resident T cells compared to their non-HPV OPSCC patient counterparts. “We think these HPV positive patients tended to have better clinical outcomes as HPV infection is likely to favor the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-06-12T12:47:47-07:00June, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Gambling today: time to ban smoking in casinos

Source: www.si.com Author: Frankie Taddeo Casinos are working feverishly towards making guests feel they are not at risk when they travel back to properties with newly implemented safety measures. Among all these new features, there is one important change blatantly missing: prohibiting smoking. Smoking could easily spread the COVID-19 virus, not only because of the need to remove your mask but because of an individual's pattern of fingers to mouth while in constant contact with each game they decide to participate in. Many doctors and experts have gone on record expressing that smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to coughing which in turn can aid in the spread of the infection. Unfortunately, casino operators don’t appear to have all the health interests of both their guests and employees at the heart of their newly implemented changes. Should that change, now is the time to play the hand being dealt and push all the collective chips into the middle. Patrons either turning on the news or coming across signs in local establishments are told to avoid touching surfaces others have touched, and then touching your face, mouth, or eyes. In casinos, gamblers continuously touch cards, chips, dice, slot machine buttons, and above all, money. Even those of us who are not medical experts can rationalize that the act of smoking could likely lead to a higher risk of transmission during uncertain times Also, what about the risks to non-smokers resulting from secondhand smoke? Part of the outline in the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-06-09T10:14:43-07:00June, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Novel intervention looks to improve timeliness, equity of head and neck cancer care delivery

Source: www.miragenews.com Author: staff report, Medical University of South Carolina Many factors go into surviving cancer. Hollings Cancer Center researcher Evan Graboyes, M.D., specializes in head and neck cancer, a disease with poor survival prospects despite intense therapy with combinations of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. While head and neck cancer only accounts for 4% of all cancer cases each year in the US, it has a high mortality rate. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 14,000 patients died from this disease in the U.S. in 2019. Overall, only 50% of head and neck cancer patients are alive at five years. Unfortunately, the mortality rate is even worse for African American head and neck cancer patients. That’s why researchers are looking for new strategies to improve patient survival and decrease racial disparities in outcomes for these patients. Graboyes and MUSC Hollings Cancer Center researchers Chanita Hughes-Halbert, Ph.D., Katherine Sterba, Ph.D., Hong Li, Ph.D., and Graham Warren, M.D., Ph.D., have teamed up to develop and test a novel intervention to improve the timeliness, equity and quality of head and neck cancer care delivery, which they think might one day be the key to improving survival for these patients. Funded by a $1.3 million 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute, their study - Improving the Timeliness and Equity of Adjuvant Therapy Following Surgery for Head and Neck Cancer-started in September 2019 and built upon important research funded by grants from Hollings Cancer Center. Graboyes explained that for patients with advanced [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2020-04-11T06:04:04-07:00April, 2020|Oral Cancer News|

Test that looks at your spit to tell if you have mouth or throat cancer caused by HPV ‘could save thousands of lives if rolled out for doctors to use’

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk Author: Connor Boyd, Health Reporter A saliva test that diagnoses mouth and throat cancer caused by HPV could save thousands of lives each year, a study suggests. Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina discovered the test was 80 per cent accurate at spotting the killer diseases. Doctors say it is able to detect the cancers early on, giving patients much higher hopes of surviving their battle. Before it can be used in hospitals around the world, further trials will be needed to confirm the technology works. But the researchers are hopeful, claiming the cheaper test - which gives results in as little as 10 minutes - has significant 'potential'. Rates of oral cancers are soaring in the Western world, with the number of patients diagnosed in the UK having doubled in a generation. US doctors have also seen a similar spike in the diseases, which can be caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). The infection – spread through oral sex, as well as anal and vaginal intercourse – is thought to cause around 70 per cent of all cases. Other risk factors include drinking excessive amounts of alcohol over long periods of time and smoking cigarettes. Professor Tony Jun Huang, study co-author, said there are around 115,000 cases of oropharyngeal cancers each year across the world. He said it is 'one of the fastest-rising cancers in Western countries due to increasing HPV-related incidence, especially in younger patients'. Orophayngeal cancer starts in the oropharynx, the back of the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-12-14T11:12:24-07:00December, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Researchers: Favorable survival, fewer side effects after reduced therapy for HPV-linked head and neck cancer

Source: medicalxpress.com Author: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers reported that reducing the intensity of radiation treatment for patients with human papillomavirus-associated head and neck cancer produced a promising two-year progression-free survival rate and resulted in fewer side effects. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, were drawn from a phase II clinical trial that included 114 patients with HPV-linked head and neck cancer and a limited smoking history. The researchers reported that they saw a similar progression free survival rate, and that patients experienced fewer long-term side effects in the study compared with patients who received standard intensity treatment in previous studies. "A simple de-intensification strategy of reducing radiation and chemotherapy appears to be as effective at cancer control as the standard seven-week regimen," said UNC Lineberger's Bhishamjit S. Chera, MD, associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology. "Furthermore, there were fewer toxicities." For the trial, patients received six weeks of treatment, including a reduced intensity of radiation therapy of 60 Gray with weekly low-dose chemotherapy of cisplatin. The standard of care regimen is seven weeks of treatment 70 Gray and high-dose chemotherapy. The main outcome that the researchers were studying was two-year progression-free survival. On the reduced regimen, researchers found that the two-year progression free survival was 86 percent, compared to a two-year progression free survival reported from other studies using standard treatment doses of 87 percent. Chera [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-09-14T09:18:38-07:00September, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

‘Whitish patch’: increase in oral dysplasia in young adults

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Kristin Jenkins Most 8-year-olds with a wiggly tooth expect the Tooth Fairy to tuck some money under their pillow. In the case of one little Canadian boy, his wiggly tooth got him an incisional biopsy, a diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), a partial maxillectomy, and a defect that was closed with local advancement flaps. "This was the most unusual case we've seen," said Marco A. Magalhaes, DDS, PhD, assistant professor of oral pathology and oral medicine in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. "OSCC predominantly affects patients 40 years of age and older," write Magalhaes and colleagues in a case study report published in November 2016 in Oral Surgery Oral Medicine Oral Pathology Oral Radiology. "It is extremely rare in patients younger than 20 years of age." The clinical, radiographic, and histologic findings in this young patient were distinctive. Although the diagnosis and treatment were challenging, the clinical course was favorable at follow-up, the authors said. This case illustrates the fact that even pediatric patients can be at risk for OSCC. Magalhaes said that he and other dentists are concerned about the rising number of OSCC cases in patients who are in their 20s and 30s. These patients have no known risk factors and are often without symptoms. Many are diagnosed with high-grade oral epithelial dysplasia (OED) that rapidly progresses to cancer, Magalhaes told Medscape Medical News. "When you look at the distribution of cases of oral dysplasia or [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-05-02T13:44:43-07:00May, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month: Self-exams, early detection can save lives

Source: www.prnewswire.com Author: press release Because early detection of oral cancer offers a greater chance of a cure, the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) is reminding the public during Oral Cancer Awareness Month of the importance of performing monthly self-exams. AAOMS promotes self-exams and screenings every April with the Oral Cancer Foundation, which predicts about 53,000 new cases of oral cancer will be diagnosed in 2019 in the United States – leading to more than 9,000 deaths. "A monthly self-exam takes only minutes and could potentially save your life," said AAOMS President A. Thomas Indresano, DMD, FACS. "If done on a regular basis, you're increasing the chances of identifying changes or new growths early. The survival rate for oral cancer is between 80 and 90 percent when it's found at early stages of development." Oral and maxillofacial surgeons (OMSs) encourage a six-step oral cancer self-exam that involves looking and feeling inside the mouth for suspicious sores and feeling the jaw and neck for lumps. Using a bright light and a mirror: First remove any dentures. Look and feel inside the lips and the front of the gums. Tilt the head back to inspect and feel the roof of the mouth. Pull the cheek out to inspect it and the gums in the back. Pull out the tongue and look at its top and bottom. Feel for lumps or enlarged lymph nodes in both sides of the neck, including under the lower jaws. Oral cancer symptoms may include [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-04-06T06:46:42-07:00April, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Flossing and going to the dentist linked to lower risk of oral cancer

Source: www.livescience.com Author: Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer Regularly flossing and going to the dentist may be tied to a lower risk of oral cancer. That's according to findings presented March 31, here at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting. In the new study, researchers analyzed the dental health behaviors of patients who were diagnosed with oral cancer between 2011 and 2014 at the ear, nose and throat clinic at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. The patients' behaviors were compared to those of non-cancer patients who came to the clinic for other reasons, such as dizziness or an earache. [7 Odd Things That Raise Your Risk of Cancer (and 1 That Doesn't)] All of the patients in the study had responded to a survey that included questions about how often they flossed, how often they went to the dentist, how sexually active they were and if they smoked or drank alcohol. Oral cancer can be divided into two categories: those driven by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) and those that aren't, said lead study author Jitesh Shewale, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. (Smoking and drinking are both risk factors for non-HPV oral cancers.) After adjusting for factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status and race, the researchers found that oral HPV-negative people who went to the dentist less than once a year had nearly twice the risk of developing oral cancer than those who went once [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-04-02T11:40:32-07:00April, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

Robot that can cut out hard-to-reach throat tumours through patients’ mouths: Pioneering operation reduces need for chemo and radiotherapy

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk Author: Fiona McCrae, Roger Dobson British surgeons are using a cutting-edge robot to remove difficult-to-reach throat tumours – through the mouths of patients. The pioneering operation is designed to dramatically reduce the need for gruelling radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which can leave patients unable to swallow and dependent on a feeding tube for life. With growing numbers of people developing throat cancer, it is more important than ever to have a range of effective treatments that lessen the impact on quality of life, says Asit Arora, consultant head and neck surgeon at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Trust in London. Once most common in elderly people with a history of drinking and smoking, rates of head and neck cancers have soared by 31 per cent in the past 25 years and are now as common in people in their 50s as in those in their 80s. The 90 minute operation is designed to dramatically reduce the need for gruelling radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which can leave patients unable to swallow and dependent on a feeding tube for life Much of the rise is attributed to HPV – a range of viruses that can be passed on during intimate and sexual contact. At least 80 per cent of the adult population carries some kinds of HPV on their skin, although most will never know it. In some cases, HPV can cause skin or genital warts, and other types are a known cause of cervical and anal cancers. HPV can [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-03-11T13:59:53-07:00March, 2019|Oral Cancer News|

HPV infection may be behind rise in vocal-cord cancers among young nonsmokers

Source: www.eurekalert.org Author: Public Release Massachusetts General Hospital A remarkable recent increase in the diagnosis of vocal-cord cancer in young adults appears to be the result of infection with strains of human papilloma virus (HPV) that also cause cervical cancer and other malignancies. Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) describe finding HPV infection in all tested samples of vocal-cord cancer from 10 patients diagnosed at age 30 or under, most of whom were non-smokers. Their report appears in a special supplement on innovations in laryngeal surgery that accompanies the March 2019 issue of Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology. "Over the past 150 years, vocal-cord or glottic cancer has been almost exclusively a disease associated with smoking and almost entirely seen in patients over 40 years old," says Steven Zeitels, MD, director of the MGH Division of Laryngeal Surgery, senior author of the report. "Today nonsmokers are approaching 50 percent of glottic cancer patients, and it is common for them to be diagnosed under the age of 40. This epidemiologic transformation of vocal-cord cancer is a significant public health issue, due to the diagnostic confusion it can create." The researchers note that the increase in vocal-cord cancer diagnosis appears to mimic an earlier increase in the diagnosis of throat cancer, which has been associated with infections by high-risk strains of HPV. After initially attributing incidents of vocal-cord cancer in nonsmokers, which they began to see about 15 years ago, to increased travel and exposure to infectious diseases, Zeitels and his [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2019-03-06T15:08:22-07:00March, 2019|Oral Cancer News|