Michael Douglas's video about the importance of early diagnosis of oral cancer

Michael Douglas who is an oral cancer survivor has released a video that underscores the importance of early diagnosis of oral cancer. It can be watched on YouTube.  Oral cancer is a disease in which malignant (cancer) cells form in the lips, oral cavity, or oropharynx. The number of new cases of oral cancer and the number of deaths from oral cancer have been decreasing slowly. Tobacco and alcohol use can affect the risk of developing oral cancer. Other risk factors are being infected with a certain type of human papillomavirus (HPV), exposure to sunlight (lip cancer only) and being a male.

There is no standard or routine screening test for oral cancer. Screening for oral cancer may be done during a routine check-up by a dentist or doctor. The exam will include looking for lesions, including areas of an abnormal white patch of cells (leukoplakia) and an abnormal red patch of cells (erythroplakia). These lesions on the mucous membranes may become cancerous.

Preoperative Chemotherapy, Radiation Improve Survival in Esophageal Cancer

Patients with esophageal cancer who received chemotherapy and radiation before surgery survived, on average, nearly twice as long as patients treated with surgery alone. The findings, from a large randomized trial of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for the disease, were published May 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Pieter van Hagen of Erasmus University Medical Center in Holland and his colleagues enrolled 368 patients who had cancer of the esophagus or of the junction between the stomach and the esophagus that had not spread to other organs. Patients randomly assigned to the chemoradiotherapy arm of the study received five courses of chemotherapy with carboplatin and paclitaxel plus concurrent external-beam radiation therapy, followed by surgery, usually within 4 to 6 weeks of completing preoperative treatment. Patients treated with carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy plus radiation prior to surgery had a median overall survival of nearly 50 months, compared with 24 months for patients treated with surgery alone. Patients benefited from preoperative therapy regardless of whether they had adenocarcinoma, the most prevalent form of esophageal cancer in the US, or squamous cell carcinoma, the most prevalent form of the disease worldwide.