survival – Page 3 – Oral Cancer News

Coupling head and neck cancer screening and lung cancer scans could improve early detection, survival

Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com Author: staff Adding head and neck cancer screenings to recommended lung cancer screenings would likely improve early detection and survival, according to a multidisciplinary team led by scientists affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), a partner with UPMC CancerCenter. In an analysis published in the journal Cancer and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the team provides a rationale for a national clinical trial to assess the effectiveness of adding examination of the head and neck to lung cancer screening programs. People most at risk for lung cancer are also those most at risk for head and neck cancer. "When caught early, the five-year survival rate for head and neck cancer is over 83 percent," said senior author Brenda Diergaarde, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health and member of the UPCI. "However, the majority of cases are diagnosed later when survival rates generally shrink below 50 percent. There is a strong need to develop strategies that will result in identification of the cancer when it can still be successfully treated." Screening patients for head and neck cancer and lung cancer could improve early detection and survival. Head and neck cancer is the world's sixth-most common type of cancer. Worldwide every year, 600,000 people are diagnosed with it and about 350,000 die. Tobacco use and alcohol consumption are the major risk factors for developing the cancer. The early symptoms are typically a lump or sore in [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-01-07T19:39:34-07:00January, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Experience counts with radiation for head and neck cancer

Source: www.oncologynurseadvisor.com Author: Kathy Boltz, PhD When it comes to specialized cancer surgery, the more experienced the surgeon, the better the outcome is generally true. The same might hold true for radiation therapy used to treat head and neck cancer, according to a new study. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology(1) with an accompanying editorial(2), the study compared survival and other outcomes in 470 patients treated with radiation therapy at 101 treatment centers through a clinical trial held from 2002 to 2005. The trial was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and organized by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG). It was conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital in Columbus. The findings indicated that patients treated at the less-experienced centers were more likely to have cancer recurrence compared with highly experienced centers (62% vs 42%, respectively, at 5 years) and had poorer overall survival compared with those at the highly experienced centers (51% vs 69% 5-year survival, respectively). “Our findings suggest that institutional experience strongly influences outcomes in patients treated with radiation therapy for head and neck cancer,” said first author Evan Wuthrick, MD. “They indicate that patients do better when treated at centers where more of these procedures are performed versus centers that do fewer.” Radiation therapy for head and neck cancer requires complex treatment planning that can vary considerably between institutions and physicians. In addition, significant short-term and long-term side effects can occur that require management [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2015-01-07T19:33:19-07:00January, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

Study suggests that experience counts when it comes to head and neck cancer treatments

Source: medicalxpress.comAuthor: staff When it comes to specialized cancer surgery, it's generally true that the more experienced the surgeon, the better the outcome. The same might hold true for radiation therapy used to treat head and neck cancer, according to a new study led by researchers Evan Wuthrick, MD, assistant professor of radiation oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James), and Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the OSUCCC - James. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology with an accompanying editorial, the study compared survival and other outcomes in 470 patients treated with radiation therapy at 101 treatment centers through a clinical trial held from 2002 to 2005. The trial was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and organized by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG). The findings indicated that patients treated at the less-experienced centers were more likely to have cancer recurrence (62 percent versus 42 percent at five years) and had poorer overall survival compared with those at the highly-experienced centers (51 percent versus 69 percent five-year survival, respectively). "Our findings suggest that institutional experience strongly influences outcomes in patients treated with radiation therapy for head and neck cancer," says Wuthrick, the paper's first author. "They indicate that patients do better when treated at centers where more of these procedures are performed versus centers that do fewer." Radiation therapy for head and neck cancer requires complex treatment planning that can vary considerably [...]

Charlotte Parker2014-12-09T12:06:48-07:00December, 2014|OCF In The News|

Antacids may improve head and neck cancer survival

Source: www.webmd.com Author: Robert Preidt Using antacids to control acid reflux may improve head and neck cancer patients' chances of survival, a new study suggests. The researchers examined the effects that two types of antacids -- proton pump inhibitors and histamine 2 blockers -- had on head and neck cancer patients. More than two-thirds of the nearly 600 patients in the study took one or both types of the antacids after their cancer diagnosis. Acid reflux -- commonly known as heartburn -- is a common side effect of chemotherapy or radiation treatment, according to the researchers. Proton pump inhibitors include drugs such as Prilosec, Nexium and Prevacid, while histamine 2 blockers include drugs such as Tagamet, Zantac and Pepcid. Compared to patients who didn't take antacids, those who took proton pump inhibitors had a 45 percent lower risk of death, according to the researchers. They also found that those who took histamine 2 blockers had a 33 percent lower risk of death. The study is published in the December issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research. "We had suspicions that these medications somehow had a favorable impact on patient outcomes. This led us to review our large cohort of patients and screen them for common medications, focusing on antacids. In fact, our study did show that people taking antacids are doing better," study author Dr. Silvana Papagerakis, research assistant professor of otolaryngology--head and neck surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School, said in a university news release. It's not [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-12-08T13:22:38-07:00December, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Number of immune cells in tumors could soon help predict and treat cancers

Source: www.science20.com Authors: Emma King, University of Southampton and Christian Ottensmeier, University of Southampton Immune cells in the blood primarily defend us against infection. But we’re now learning that these cells can also keep us free from cancer. Patients with less efficient immune systems such as organ transplant recipients or those with untreated HIV, for example, are more susceptible to cancers. It is also becoming increasingly apparent that we can use immune cells to predict survival in people who do develop cancer. And that, in fact, there are immune cells within cancers. Head and neck cancer underway The number of immune cells inside a tumor can hugely vary: some patients have vast numbers while some have very few. In a recent study, we showed that in head and neck cancers, the survival of a patient depends on how many immune cells are within the tumor. This could be a valuable way of individualizing cancer treatments. Patients with lots of immune cells, for example, could be offered less toxic cancer treatment while those with few immune cells may need more aggressive treatment to improve their chances of survival. Not all immune cells within the tumor are able to “attack” the cancer. By looking at specific cell markers – proteins on the cell exterior that allow us to see whether, for example, cells are exhausted – we can determine which individual immune cells in the tumor will be effective in tackling the cancer, or if they are exhausted and not [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-09-26T06:21:57-07:00September, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Docetaxel regimen tops cisplatin in head and neck cancer

Source: www.cancernetwork.com Author: Anna Azvolinsky, PhD A phase II study has demonstrated that combining docetaxel-based chemoradiotherapy and the antibody cetuximab postoperatively in patients with high-risk squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck led to improved disease-free and overall survival, with no unexpected toxicities. The results of the study were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Two-hundred and thirty-eight stage III and IV patients were randomized to receive radiation therapy (60 Gy) plus cetuximab and either cisplatin (30 mg/m2) or docetaxel (15 mg/m2) once per week as part of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0234 clinical trial. The 2-year overall survival (OS) was 69% in the cisplatin treatment arm and 79% in the docetaxel treatment arm. The 2-year disease-free survival (DFS) was 57% and 66% in the cisplatin and docetaxel arms, respectively. Previously, two large phase III trials, the RTOG 9501 and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) 22931 trials, both showed a small but significant survival benefit for postoperative head and neck cancer patients who received adjuvant radiation and chemotherapy concurrently, resulting in the incorporation of cisplatin in an adjuvant regimen for high-risk patients. The drawback was that adding cisplatin to radiation therapy increased toxicity. Many of these patients are not candidates for the combination therapy due to poor performance status, older age, and renal insufficiency. The purpose of the current trial was to test whether combining a molecular therapy such as cetuximab with chemotherapy would improve survival with a better toxicity profile, [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-07-19T07:13:12-07:00July, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Chemoradiation offered better survival than accelerated radiation in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

Source: www.oncologypractice.com Author: Neil Osterweil, Oncology Report Digital Network Concurrent chemoradiation offered better overall survival and disease-free survival than accelerated radiotherapy in patients with moderately advanced squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck, investigators reported at the Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Symposium. Actuarial rates of 2-year overall survival and disease-free survival in patients treated with concurrent chemoradiation (CCR) were significantly better than for patients treated with accelerated radiotherapy alone, reported Dr. Krzysztof Skladowski of the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Cancer Center and Institute of Oncology in Gliwice, Poland. "CCR with conventional 7 weeks of fractionation and at least two courses of high-dose cisplatin is more effective than 6 weeks of accelerated radiotherapy alone," he said. Even if patients can tolerate only a single course of cisplatin, CCR is still superior to accelerated radiation, he added. The findings suggest that accelerated radiation protocols should be reserved for patients with more favorable prognosis, such as those with stage T2 disease with limited nodal involvement, and those who are positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) p16 protein, Dr. Skladowski said at the symposium cosponsored by the American Society for Radiation Oncology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The findings are "concordant with data that has been emerging now over approximately 10-14 years of the value of concurrent chemoradiation in head and neck cancer for a substantial cohort of patients over radiation alone," said Dr. Paul Harari of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the invited discussant. Although a previous meta-analysis (Lancet 2006; [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-03-19T07:16:22-07:00March, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Study: Oropharyngeal cancer on the rise in young adults

Source: www.sciencecodex.com Author: staff A new study reveals an alarming increase in oropharyngeal cancers among young adults. While the exact cause for this phenomenon is unknown, the human papillomavirus (HPV) may be to blame. According to researchers from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit there was an overall 60 percent increase from 1973 and 2009 in cancers of the base of tongue, tonsils, soft palate and pharynx in people younger than age 45. Among Caucasians, there was a 113 percent increase, while among African-Americans the rate of these cancers declined by 52 percent during that period of time. But compared to Caucasians and other races, the five-year survival rate remains worse for African Americans. The study is published online ahead of print in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. "The growing incidence in oropharyngeal cancer has been largely attributed to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an increased transmission of high-risk HPV," says study lead author Farzan Siddiqui, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Head & Neck Radiation Therapy Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital. "We were interested in looking at people born during that time period and incidence of oropharyngeal cancer. Not only were we surprised to find a substantial increase in young adults with cancer of the tonsils and base of tongue, but also a wide deviation among Caucasians and African Americans with this cancer." The American Cancer Society estimates about [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2014-01-31T09:22:10-07:00January, 2014|Oral Cancer News|

Certain genetic alterations may explain head and neck cancer survival disparities

Source: www.sciencecodex.com Author: staff Certain genetic alterations to the PAX gene family may be responsible for survival disparities seen between African-American and non-Latino white men with head and neck cancer, according to results presented here at the Sixth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved, held Dec. 6-9. "During the last 30 years, the overall five-year relative survival rates for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) have increased, but despite that, the gap in overall survival rates between non-Latino white patients and African-American patients has remained unchanged," said Rafael Guerrero-Preston, Dr.P.H., assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. "This disparity may be due to differences in genetic and epigenetic alterations among African-American patients." To test this theory, Guerrero-Preston and colleagues performed a two-stage epigenomic study. In the stage-one discovery phase, the researchers used next-generation sequencing and array-based technologies to evaluate 107 HNSCC samples. In the stage-two validation phase, they validated the findings of the discovery phase and evaluated their effect on survival rates in 279 patient samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas project. "Our results highlight the differential genomic and epigenomic alterations in PAX, NOTCH, and TP53 pathways between African-American and non-Latino white HNSCC patients, which underlie the complex biology of morphologically similar tumors and explain HNSCC survival disparities," Guerrero-Preston said. "If further validated in larger cohorts, these discoveries could be used to develop genomic and epigenomic panels that will enable more treatment options, a reduction in treatment [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-12-09T14:38:31-07:00December, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Study reveals genetic diversity within tumors predicts outcome in head and neck cancer

Source: bionews-tx.com Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary have developed a new way to predict the survival rate of patients who have squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, thanks to a study partially funded by a CPRIT grant. One of the problems with treating cancer is the degree of genetic heterogeneity within a tumor. What this means is that there are sub populations of tumor cells within a given tumor that have different mutations. This makes the cancer difficult to treat because some cells due to their different mutations will be resistant to the same treatment. According to Edmund Mroz, PhD at the MGH center for Cancer Research (lead author of a report in Cancer on May 20, 2013), this new method of measuring genetic heterogeneity can be applied to a wide range of cancers. (Additional co-authors included Curtis Pickering, PhD, and Jeffrey Myers, MD, PhD, both from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.) Prior to this study, genes and proteins that are involved with treatment resistance have been identified, however, there has been no way to measure tumor heterogeneity to predict patient survival. Mroz and his group of researchers working in the lab of James Rocco, MD, PhD at MGH developed this new measure by looking at advanced gene sequencing data to calculate a number that indicates the genetic variance found in sub populations of cells within a tumor. They dubbed this new procedure as the mutant-allele tumor [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2013-05-25T14:02:13-07:00May, 2013|Oral Cancer News|