This is a post in response to a comment made by Brian Hill on December 29,2002. It is located under the Activism heading under the topic Now Hear This.

Brian made a comment that not much research is going towards oral cancer and that this research probably won't lead to new treatments. This comment really offended me because I am in the research field and I directly benefitted from a new treatment regimine brought about through research.

I want to say right off the bat that I am an advocate for more awareness and am involved in groups trying to promote awareness for oral cancer because hightened awareness could have prevented me from going through my battle with oral cancer. In fact, a news story featuring an interview with both me and my doctor was shown all over the country during the month of September to promote the new treatment technique and oral cancer awareness.

The new treatment I went through was developed by Dr. Schuller and his team at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State. It is called the intensification protocol and can give people with stage 3 or 4 oral cancer a 60-70% chance of survival. That's a huge difference from the normal 30-40% survival rate provided by other treatments.

I know that oral cancer isn't one of the most common and therefore not much funding goes towards it's research, but I want to stress the fact that quality research is being done to help all of the patients and survivors of this disease. I did a search for papers published on oral cancer from January 1, 2000 to January 1, 2003 and ended up with 2809 results. Many of these papers dealt with specifically characterizing oral cancer tumors so that future treatments can be focused in on the affected areas with less damage to the rest of the body.

One example of these studies is going on at OSU, and someday I hope to get a post-doc position working in this lab. A group has found a specific gene defect that causes some oral cancers to be more agressive than others. In the future, patients could be screened for this defect so that they can be monitored more closely and treated more intensely.

I just had to post this because I really don't think researchers get enough credit. My support group at OSU was lucky enough to have one of the oral cancer investigators come and give a talk and this was one of the biggest attended meetings. This meeting was really enlightening and at the end a bunch of the survivors actually thanked the investigator for the work he is doing. I think we should all take some time to thank the researchers that are out there working for better treatments and a cure for oral cancer. The life of a researcher is not an easy one....believe me I can tell you lots of horror stories. It is worse for researchers dealing with a topic that isn't one of the "hot" ones such as breast cancer or prostate cancer.

From my own personal experience, most of the people doing research into oral cancer personally knew someone who fought the disease or had the disease themselves. Their work is one that really matters to them, and they should be applauded for it, especially the physicians who choose to take on research as well as treating patients.