tumors

HPV is now the leading cause of oral cancer in the US: learn the facts.

Source: New York Daily News HPV, otherwise known as the human papillomavirus, is a leading cause of cervical cancer for women but the nasty virus is now causing a spike in oral cancer and ravaging an entirely different group: men. Cases of oral cancer resulting from exposure to the HPV-16 strain of the virus are hitting epidemic proportions in the U.S., doctors say. Though the mention of oral cancer evokes images of gravely-voiced chain-smokers, the disease now has a new face: mostly white, male, non-smokers in their late 30s and early 40s. The tumors forming on the back of their tongues and tonsils have nothing to do with nicotine – they are directly linked to engaging in oral sex with multiple female partners. "If you've had more than five or six sexual partners, you are at a higher risk," Dr. Eric M. Genden, professor and chair of head and neck surgery at Mount Sinai Medical center told the Daily News. "We're only now beginning to see the beginning of a bell curve." Women can get it from men as well although their chances are lower, according to doctors. The human papillomavirus (HPV), a nasty bug with strains that causes genital warts and cervical cancer in women, is now the top cause of oral cancer in men, beating out smoking and drinking, according to reports from the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Oncology as well as other research and treating institutions. The number of smokers in the [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-04-21T13:52:00-07:00April, 2011|OCF In The News, Oral Cancer News|

Hospital Performs Area’s First Robotic Surgeries on Oral Cancers HEALTH CARE: Technique Could Reduce the Length Of Patients Hospital Stay

Source: San Diego Business Journal By: Steve Sinovic The first transoral robotic surgeries in San Diego have been performed at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and all three patients who underwent those procedures are recovering well, said the surgeon who is leading up the effort to help patients beat early-stage oral cancer. Advances in robotic surgery prompted the hospital to look for ways to apply that technology to treat tumors of the mouth and throat. And thanks to a local benefactor, the institution hopes to be performing more procedures on local patients. The hospital is one of fewer than a dozen in the U.S. to offer the procedure, which was launched thanks to a $1.2 million anonymous donation to Sharp Chula Vista. The donation helped fund the acquisition of Intuitive Surgical Inc.’s da Vinci Surgical System, said Dan Dredla, vice president of business development for the 343-bed hospital in south San Diego County. “We were fortunate that a donor helped us purchase the da Vinci,” said Dredla. “It’s a costly system, and it was challenging to find the capital to acquire it on our own.” The da Vinci robot, which combines enhanced 3-D views with precise incision capabilities, is already being used for various surgeries at hundreds of hospitals throughout the country and around the world. However, it was just recently that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved using the da Vinci for the transoral surgeries, or TORS, procedures on head and neck cancers. While Dredla didn’t have exact [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-12-17T11:39:08-07:00December, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New cancer drug gets dramatic results

Source: Technology Review Author: Emily Singer Researchers call the experimental drug a major success for targeted cancer therapies. An experimental drug designed to block the effects of a genetic mutation often found in patients with malignant melanoma, a deadly cancer with few existing treatments, significantly shrank tumors in about 80 percent of those who carried the mutation. The findings, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, signal a major success for so-called targeted cancer therapies, which are designed to block the effects of genetic mutations that drive the growth of cancer cells. "This study is a major breakthrough in cancer treatment, and for metastatic melanoma," saysMatthew Meyerson, an oncologist and researcher at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Meyerson was not involved in the study. "It's a spectacular example of how genome-targeted therapies are beginning to help cancer patients." The drug in the current study inhibits activity of a protein called BRAF, which is overactive in 50 to 60 percent of malignant melanomas. Advances in genetic technologies over the last decade have allowed scientists to study the genetic mutations that underlie cancer in much greater detail. The result has been a new approach to drug design. Unlike chemotherapy, which can affect both healthy and cancerous cells and often triggers serious side effects, genetically targeted drugs act selectively on cancer cells that carry the mutation. Only a handful of such drugs have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and most target rare mutations. The BRAF mutation, [...]

Charlotte Parker2010-08-29T07:37:09-07:00August, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New model for oral cancer/tobacco research

Source: www.upi.com/Health_News Author: staff A carcinogen in tobacco smoke is being used in oral cancer research to provide a more relevant model to understand the disease, U.S. researchers say. Joseph Guttenplan of the the New York City College of Dentistry and Dr. Karam El-Bayoumy of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine say smoking is understood to be one of the leading causes of oral cancer, but research on oral cancer in has been limited to using synthetic carcinogens manufactured especially for cancer research, instead of examining the carcinogens that occur in tobacco smoke. The researchers injected low, medium and high doses of dibenzo(a,l)pyrene, a carcinogen in tobacco, into the mouths of 104 mice. After 38 weeks, one group of the mice developed excessive numbers of mutations in their oral tissue and within one year, 31 percent of a second group of mice displayed large tumors in their mouths. "As a result of this study, we now have a model that is significantly better than past models which relied on synthetic carcinogens," Guttenplan says in a statement. "We plan to use this new model in future studies to examine potential agents for cancer prevention." The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington.

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-05-14T14:40:06-07:00May, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Can dentists commit malpractice?

Source: www.livegreenlivestrong.com Author: linkvine Dentists, like other kinds of health professionals, are accountable for maintaining the highest standards in the service they give to their clientele. Because dentists are also health professionals, when they err or breach their obligations, they too can be shown to have committed medical malpractice. While not quite on the same level as cutting off the wrong leg or leaving surgical instruments behind in the body cavity, Dental Malpractice Lawyers can still carry some severe repercussions in the event that it occurs. First, dentists are the first line of defense against cancers of the mouth. Usually before someone notices anything is not right or feels anything, there will be symptoms evident in the mouth that look abnormal. Since dentists practice such an up close and personal relationship with all of the parts of the mouth, they should see things like tumors or pre-tumors in the mouth. As a consequence, a dentist may offer a patient with very early signals or early vigilance or early suspicion of cancer. This can make a world of difference in the treatment needed and how much tumor has to be eliminated from the mouth. It also lessens the chances that the cancer will spread throughout the body. Oral surgeons, who are in addition dentists, are also able to be liable for Dental Malpractice Lawyers. Oral surgeons are slightly more at risk because they are engaged in surgery.It would be tough for an oral surgeon to leave an instrument in the mouth [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-04-20T07:04:02-07:00April, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

New test genetically fingerprints tumors

Source: online.wsj.com Author: Ron Winslow In a fresh advance for the burgeoning field of personalized medicine, researchers have developed a blood test based on the DNA of tumors that could help tailor treatment for individual cancer patients. The report, announced Thursday, represents one of the most tangible examples yet of how the ability to sequence a person's entire genetic code could have a direct impact on patient care. There have been a flurry of reports on new sequencing technology that is yielding enormous amounts of information about genetics and disease, but that has yet to deliver much in the way of new treatment strategies. "For cancer patients there hasn't been much utility so far. This may prove to be one of the first useful approaches," said Victor Velculescu, co-director of the cancer biology program at Johns Hopkins University's Kimmel Cancer Center and senior author of the new study. Much research involving whole-genome sequencing is aimed at finding differences in the individual letters that make up the genetic code. The belief is that those small alterations will point to molecular pathways that regulate disease, which would be potential targets for drug therapies. The Hopkins researchers, writing in the journal Science Translational Medicine, took a different approach. They scanned the DNA of tumors taken from six patients with breast or colon cancer, looking not for tiny DNA changes, but what they call rearrangements in large sections of the genome of tumor cells. The DNA of tumors varies genetically from that of normal [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-02-20T22:29:37-07:00February, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Implant-based cancer vaccine is first to eliminate tumors in mice

Source: news.biocompare.com Authors: David J. Mooney et al. A cancer vaccine carried into the body on a carefully engineered, fingernail-sized implant is the first to successfully eliminate tumors in mammals, scientists report this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The new approach, pioneered by bioengineers and immunologists at Harvard University, uses plastic disks impregnated with tumor-specific antigens and implanted under the skin to reprogram the mammalian immune system to attack tumors. The new paper describes the use of such implants to eradicate melanoma tumors in mice. "This work shows the power of applying engineering approaches to immunology," says David J. Mooney, the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. "By marrying engineering and immunology through this collaboration with Glenn Dranoff at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, we've taken a major step toward the design of effective cancer vaccines." Most cancer cells easily skirt the immune system, which operates by recognizing and attacking invaders from outside the body. The approach developed by Mooney's group redirects the immune system to target tumors, and appears both more effective and less cumbersome than other cancer vaccines currently in clinical trials. Conventional cancer vaccinations remove immune cells from the body, reprogram them to attack malignant tissues, and return them to the body. However, more than 90 percent of reinjected cells have died before having any effect in experiments. The slender implants developed by Mooney's group are 8.5 millimeters in diameter [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-12-01T15:36:50-07:00December, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Incidence of carcinoma of the major salivary glands according to the WHO classification, 1992 to 2006: a population-based study in the United States

Source: CEBP.com Author: Staff Requests for reprints: Graça M. Dores, Medical Service (111), Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 921 North East 13th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104. Phone: 405-456-3325. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Background: Carcinomas of the major salivary glands (M-SGC) comprise a morphologically diverse group of rare tumors of largely unknown cause. To gain insight into etiology, we evaluated incidence of M-SGC using the WHO classification schema (WHO-2005). Methods: We calculated age-adjusted incidence rates (IR) and IR ratios (IRR) for M-SGC diagnosed between 1992 and 2006 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program. Results: Overall, 6,391 M-SGC (IR, 11.95/1,000,000 person-years) were diagnosed during 1992 to 2006. Nearly 85% of cases (n = 5,370; IR, 10.00) were encompassed within WHO-2005, and among these, males had higher IRs than females [IRR, 1.51; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.43-1.60]. Squamous cell (IR, 3.44) and mucoepidermoid (IR, 3.23) carcinomas occurred most frequently among males, whereas mucoepidermoid (IR, 2.67), acinic cell (IR, 1.57), and adenoid cystic (IR, 1.40) carcinomas were most common among females. Mucoepidermoid, acinic cell, and adenoid cystic carcinomas predominated in females through age ∼50 years; thereafter, IRs of acinic cell and adenoid cystic carcinomas were nearly equal among females and males, whereas IRs of mucoepidermoid carcinoma among males exceeded IRs among females (IRR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.38-1.78). Except for mucoepidermoid and adenoid cystic carcinomas, which occurred equally among all races, other subtypes had significantly lower incidence among Blacks and Asians/Pacific Islanders than among Whites. Adenoid cystic carcinoma occurred equally in [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-11-09T13:55:37-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Adding chemo helps head, neck cancer patients

Source: HealthDayNews Author: Staff TUESDAY, Oct. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Combining chemotherapy with radiation treatment for patients with advanced head and neck cancer increases their event-free survival to 2.2 years from just one year with radiotherapy alone, finds a new study. According to the study authors, "events" include cancer recurrence, new tumors or death. British researchers looked at the 10-year outcomes of 966 patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. Those who hadn't undergone surgery for their cancer were randomly assigned to one of four groups: radiotherapy alone (233 patients); two courses of simultaneous (SIM) chemotherapy given at the same time as radiotherapy (166 patients); two courses of chemotherapy after (subsequent -- SUB) completing radiotherapy (160 patients); or both SIM and SUB (154 patients). Patients who'd had surgery were randomly assigned to radiotherapy alone (135 patients) or SIM alone (118 patients). Overall, non-platinum-based chemotherapy given at the same time as radiotherapy reduced deaths and cancer recurrence in patients who hadn't undergone surgery, with acceptable toxicity. But patients who'd undergone surgery didn't benefit from this combined treatment. The researchers also found that chemotherapy given after radiotherapy was ineffective, didn't improve survival, and doubled the rate of toxicity. Among patients who didn't have surgery, median survival time was 2.6 years in the radiotherapy group, and 4.7 years, 2.3 years and 2.7 years, respectively, in patients who received SIM alone, SUB alone, and SIM plus SUB. Median event-free survival among patients who didn't have surgery was one year in the radiotherapy group, 2.2 years in [...]

Charlotte Parker2009-10-30T05:30:39-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Cancers can vanish without treatment, but how?

Source: nytimes.com Author: Gina Kolata Call it the arrow of cancer. Like the arrow of time, it was supposed to point in one direction. Cancers grew and worsened. But as a paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association noted last week, data from more than two decades of screening for breast and prostate cancer call that view into question. Besides finding tumors that would be lethal if left untreated, screening appears to be finding many small tumors that would not be a problem if they were left alone, undiscovered by screening. They were destined to stop growing on their own or shrink, or even, at least in the case of some breast cancers, disappear. “The old view is that cancer is a linear process,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. “A cell acquired a mutation, and little by little it acquired more and more mutations. Mutations are not supposed to revert spontaneously.” So, Dr. Kramer said, the image was “an arrow that moved in one direction.” But now, he added, it is becoming increasingly clear that cancers require more than mutations to progress. They need the cooperation of surrounding cells and even, he said, “the whole organism, the person,” whose immune system or hormone levels, for example, can squelch or fuel a tumor. Cancer, Dr. Kramer said, is a dynamic process. It was a view that was hard for some cancer doctors and researchers to accept. But some of [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-10-27T04:15:26-07:00October, 2009|Oral Cancer News|