Just received my copy of SPOHNC newsletter and they have an article on clinical trials. There are some out there for head & neck cancer and the NCI site lists them. Trials listed are divided according to anatomical sites, however, cancers from many head & neck sites may be included in the same trial.
Found a reference to the trial I'm in:

Targeted therapy - what makes cancer "tick" focuses on growing list of targets and pathways. One such pathway is EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). EGFR is a protein receptor frequently found in head and neck cancers. This particular pathway is one that can be blocked with the intent of affecting tumor growth.
One way to interfere with this pathway is to target an antibody at this particular receptor.
One of the agents that target this pathway is my drug Tarceva (OSI-774)

This is not verbatim, but close. I'm still going to try and find somewhere that will explain the difference in trials - I , II, & III. Don't know that? Anyone?

Take care,
Dinah

Dinah, I am SO glad to know you are in a clinical trial. Different problem, but a dear friend with lung cancer has gone from trial to trial for the last FOUR years and is doing great. I wish the same for you!
Joanna

Thanks Joanna,

I just went to the spohnc.org site and have been looking up the definition of the staging of trials. Kind of what I thought.

I am impressed with the section on clinical trials...it even has a listing of trials going on around the country. There are over a 100 listed for head & neck. I found it interesting.

Since my appointment next week will tell us if this trial is doing any good, you can bet the next question out of my mouth will be "what other trials are there?" And I think I'll print the list off of the web site, and have it in my pocket.

Take care,
Dinah

Just in case you both missed it, on our resources page are the three primary links to all clinical trials in the US. Once you are there, you just have to search by topic such as oral cancer or head and neck.......... Rather than try to continue to post current trials on our site (There are hundreds ongoing which change daily) I felt it was better to give people the links to the three sites that DAILY put up the current information. By the time the SPOHNC newsletter goes out, the information in it related to clinical trials is already dated. Since there are so many trials and so many people trying to qualify to get into one, they frequently fill up rapidly and are closed to new patients. Anything you find in print will likely be full. That is why going to these three web links is your best bet for locating one if you are doing your own research. People like Dinah who are lucky enough to become enrolled in an appropriate trial, get in because her doctor, or treating institution has their finger on the pulse of these things. Your treating institution is frequently your best source for locating the appropriate trials. They have had to get approved to participate in a particular trial and enroll patients, and particularly if you are at a research or teaching institution, they get funding for participating in the trials as well. Given all this, they know what

Dinah, tell us what day, what time, and where your appointment is, because I, for one, want to face the proper direction and send a ton of "give her the right answer" energy. And I am not kidding. I have a long history of this working for me and others. And I am only a little but nuts (grin).
Joanna

You're right Brian, I missed the section on this site. I should have known you'd be way ahead of all of us.

Joanna, my CT scan is scheduled for Monday morning at 10:15 at Sendero Imaging in San Antonio. My doctor's appointment is at Cancer Therapy Treatment Center at 9:30 in the morning, on Tuesday, also in San Antonio. And I wouldn't dare scoff at good you or anyone. I believe that everything helps. Thanks for the good thoughts.

Take care,
Dinah

It's not about being right, but I know from looking at our web stats each month how often every page is visited, which are the most popular etc. I mentioned it just to remind people that there is a great deal of information on this site that has been assembled, and each month we add new pages of relative information. Where someone else does it better, such as in listing the clinical trials, I use their organizations links, after all OCF can