2024: This factsheet 'Ka Hua Mai Te Mate Pukupuku I Te Inu Waipiro – Alcohol Causes Cancer' compiles the evidence of alcohol causing cancer from an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective and is calling for greater awareness and action to address the issue.

Did you know? Drinking alcohol causes cancer

Alcohol is responsible for hundreds of cancer cases in Aotearoa New Zealand every year. Most of us know that smoking, asbestos, and sun damage can cause cancer, but it’s less well known that drinking alcohol can too. Alcohol causes cancer by damaging our DNA.

Drinking alcohol doesn’t mean that you’ll definitely get cancer, but the risk is higher the more alcohol we drink.

Drinking alcohol also makes cancer more likely to spread and harder to treat.

How we drink affects the risk

• The amount we drink is the most important.

• All types of alcoholic drinks cause cancer including wine.

• Even light drinking (1–3 standard drinks a week) puts us at risk.

• Smoking and drinking at the same time increases the risk of mouth and throat cancer.

• Reducing our drinking lowers the risk.

Mayo Clinic researchers are collaborating on a phase 2, multisite, interventional trial to evaluate a blood-based biomarker using a testing device for HPV-driven head and neck cancers.

HPV-related head and neck cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers in the U.S. This research has the potential to improve clinical outcomes by enabling physicians to select individualized treatment options that aim to decrease cancer recurrence and minimize the side effects and morbidity of treatment.

Collaborators from each of the three participating sites ― Mayo Clinic campuses in Florida, Arizona, and Minnesota ― launched the trial in February 2023 and plan to continue active enrollment through August 2028. Radiation oncologist Adam L. Holtzman, M.D., the Florida-site principal investigator, and otolaryngologists Jeffrey R. Janus, M.D., Phillip Pirgousis, M.D., and Samip Patel, M.D., also from the Florida site, are collaborating on research efforts.

DART 2.0 builds on the results of a previously reported de-escalated adjuvant radiation therapy clinical trial, also known as DART, for patients with HPV oropharynx cancer. In the previous trial, DART was associated with a 33% reduction in cost for radiation therapy as well as a 21% reduction in overall treatment cost for patients with oropharynx cancer. The benefit to patients of a two-week course of treatment instead of a six-week course of treatment is tremendous, especially for patients with limited social and financial resources. Importantly, this study also allows for de-escalation of patients who primarily receive radiotherapy without surgery based on biomarker response during chemoradiotherapy.

Our team here at the Head and Neck Cancer Support Network have provided a submission on the Optimal Cancer Care Pathwya for people with head and neck cancer.

We found that the probability of being alive and free of disease at two years was approximately 64% for cetuximab versus 51% for durvalumab, indicating no evidence of a benefit of durvalumab over cetuximab. We had a lot of reasons to be optimistic about durvalumab, but it turned out to be potentially worse than the standard."

Loren Mell, MD, professor and vice chair of clinical and translational research at University of California San Diego School of Medicine Department of Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences

New ‘fingerprinting’ method offers hope for targeted head and neck cancer treatments

Innovative technology uses a machine-learning-based approach to analyze cancer cells and surrounding tissues at an unprecedented single-cell level

Here in New Zealand, mouth cancer affects over 300 people each year, with cases on the rise. Often, this disease goes undetected until it has already reached an advanced stage, making treatment more challenging and survival rates lower. Early detection can make a difference, and this is where our general practitioners (GPs) and dentists have a vital role to play.

The phase 3 KEYNOTE-689 trial has been evaluating Keytruda (pembrolizumab) as a perioperative treatment for patients newly diagnosed with stage 3 or 4A, resected, locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The drug was given as a neoadjuvant therapy before surgery, then continued after surgery in combination with standard-of-care radiotherapy (with or without cisplatin) as an adjuvant therapy, and then as a maintenance therapy.

Results from a pre-specified interim analysis demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in event-free survival for patients receiving the Keytruda regimen, meeting the study’s primary endpoint.

A statistically significant improvement in major pathological response, a key secondary endpoint, was also shown for patients in the Keytruda arm compared with adjuvant radiotherapy alone, and the safety profile of Merck’s drug was consistent with that observed in previously reported studies.

More than 58,450 new cases of head and neck cancer, which describes a number of different tumours that develop in or around the throat, larynx, nose, sinuses and mouth, are expected to be diagnosed in the US this year.

Keytruda works by increasing the ability of the body’s immune system to help detect and fight tumour cells, and is already approved as a monotherapy and in combination regimens for certain patients with metastatic or unresectable, recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The era of treating every patient with head and neck cancer with the same regimen—a combination of aggressive surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy—is coming to a close. Advances in care in the past decade, most notably in the past few years, have opened the doors to new ways of thinking that are extending survival and improving quality of life for patients.

https://www.euronews.com/health/2024/09/27/scientists-discover-link-between-bacteria-in-the-mouth-and-head-and-neck-cancers

10 Top Tips for Dentists treating Head and Neck Cancer patients.

Please note: In New Zealand, follow-up dental care is provided privately by the patient’s own dentist. Patients may or may not have health insurance to cover these costs.