This was in Tuesdays Detroit Free Press. The doctor in this is Dan's Oncologist. I thought it great that it was in our paper. This is the first time I have ever seen anything related to Oral Cancer printed in the Detroit area.

"Patients with advanced head and neck cancers do better if chemotherapy is added to the radiation and surgery they now receive, two new studies suggest. The findings shuld change the standard of care for people with such high risk tumors, said Dr John Ensley, pare of a team that piloted the combination treatment in the 1980's at Barbara Ann Karmanos cancer Institute and its affiliate Wayne State University School of Medicine.
It has also become the accepted treatment for several other types of cancers, including nasopharyngeal tumors in the region that connects the mouth and nose to the esophagus.
The regimen gives 6-8 weeks of radiation treatmens and high doses of chemotherapy on the first, 22nd, and 43rd days of radiation.
This particular regimen has hit a home run every time said Ensley, head of oncology for the Karmanos head andneck cancer team.
It comes at a cost. Complications included four deaths about 2 percent of patients in one study. One in four had side effets, including mouth sores and stomach problems. About 5 percent had such severe mouth sores that they will need feeding tubes for a lifetime. (Dan got treatment for his mouth sores and was fine) The research was reported in the May 6th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Head and neck cancers include tumors of the tongue, mouth,nose and throat. They are the 6th most common type of cancer worldwide. About 37,000 cases are diagnosed in the United States each year.
They are among the more difficult to eradicate. They often recur despite surgery and radiation and kill more than half the patients diagnosed with them within 5 years said Dr.Bruce campbell a Milwaukee doctor who helped conduct one of the studies.
The new research involves advanced squamous cell tumors, which originate in cells lining structures in the head and neck and often spread to nearby lymph nodes. Smoking and other tocacco use accounts for 85 percent of the cases.
One study involved more than 400 AMerican patients, half of whom got radiation and the others radiation plus the drug "cisplatin" between 1995-2000. After 2 years 82 percent of those who got chemo had their cancer controlled, compared to 72 percent who got radiation alone.
There was no difference in overall survival perhaps researchers say, because of high rates of deather from other diseases related to smoking and alcohol ue, also common among people with head and neck tumors.
The second study found chemotherapy improved survival. It was done in Europe and involved more than 300 patients.
Five year survial was 53 percent in those who got chmeotherapy and 40 percent for those who got radiation alone.
Ensley and others expect that the longer studies are conducted more survival benefit will be apparent.