Active clinical trials for "Head and Neck Neoplasms"

The goal of this study is to better understand the changes in symptoms and overall quality of life after head and neck surgery and reconstruction. "Quality of Life" means how you feel about your life as a result of your disease and its treatment. Learning about changes in patients' quality of life will help doctors and future patients make more informed treatment decisions.

The goal of this research study is to look at how long individuals who have been treated for early stage NSCLC or HNSCC live without developing lung cancer. Another goal is to develop tools to help predict the likelihood of lung cancer occurrence in this population. This will be done by studying characteristics of tissue and bodily fluids (including blood). Objectives: To assess the smoking-related disease-free survival in patients who are current or former smokers with a prior definitively-treated stage I/II lung or head and neck cancer. To develop a risk model to help predict the likelihood of lung cancer development both imaging and biomarker based in this high-risk population.

Preliminary observations suggest positron emission tomography (PET) imaging with an F-18 labeled thymidine analog (FLT) can selectively identify proliferating and non-proliferating tissues, including tumors. FLT uptake in the tumor appears to reflect the level of cells undergoing DNA synthesis. This is clinically important because cell proliferation markers have significant prognostic value, both prior to initiating radiotherapy and as they change during the course of therapy. In the proposed study, the researchers assess the biodistribution and radiation dosimetry of FLT to obtain the necessary data to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The information collected under Radioactive Drug Research Committee (RDRC) approval will not be used for diagnostic purposes, to assess the subject's response to therapy, or for clinical management of the subject.

It is estimated that there will be 670,000 new cases of cancer worldwide in 2020-2022 and it is known that the most commonly instituted treatments in cancer are chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. However, these treatments have undesirable side effects, such as Radiodermatitis after Radiotherapy (RD). In fact, the prevalence of possible side effects after radiotherapy is estimated to be 80 to 90%. Radiotherapy complications are associated with a negative impact on patients' quality of life and few supportive measures are available for such complications. Thus, the management of these side effects has been studied in the literature until the present day. On the other hand, Photobiomodulation (PBM) has an important role in wound repair and tissue regeneration, as it influences the different phases of lesion resolution, including the inflammatory phase, the proliferative phase and the remodeling phase. Thus, the aim of this study is to report a case series of Head and Neck Cancer Patients diagnosed with radiotherapy-induced acute radiodermatitis treated with PBM and/or PDT. This is a case series report and the study data will be extracted from the medical records of four head and neck cancer patients with grade 2 to 4 followed up from 2021 at the Laser Therapy Outpatient Clinic in a Universitarian Hospital. The outcomes are the size of the lesion, the presence of pain assessed by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the RTOG Scale (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Scale) to assess the degree of Radiodermatitis before and after PBM/PDT therapy. Data with positive or negative results will be reported.

Rapid On-Site Evaluation (ROSE) of cytology FNA samples performed by a Pathologist or Biomedical Scientist is a real time morphological assessment of the sample in the clinical setting with the aim of acquiring all the diagnostic material in one appointment resulting in reduction in costs, improved patient care and reduced referral to treatment time. It is not practical or possible for the ROSE team to be present in every location where an FNA is performed. Telecytology (TC) or remote ROSE is a digital form of ROSE which allows a biomedical scientist or pathologist working in a remote laboratory to review the cytology slides in real time, using microscope images fed from the location where the FNA procedure is being performed.

The investigators intend to determine if patients that are already undergoing Hyperbaric Oxygen (HBO) therapy one year post treatment with radiation therapy for head and neck cancer, experience improvement in xerostomia and/or taste alteration. The investigators will enroll a similar demographic one year post treatment with radiation therapy that does not receive HBO therapy. This is a quality of life study.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether 18F-Al labeled RGD is safety and effective for cancer diagnosis and therapy response.

The purpose of this study is to determine if NIR fluorescent imaging is an effective approach to detect the margins of head and neck tumours or lymph nodes draining the tumour

Some patients with head and neck cancer or benign tumours of the head and neck receive radiotherapy to their neck as part of their treatment. The carotid arteries are often included in the radiotherapy as collateral structures. There is some evidence to show that radiotherapy to these blood vessels can result in thickening of the artery walls some years after treatment and increased risk of stroke or TIA in the future. Current research is now aimed towards detecting radiotherapy-related changes to the carotid arteries at an earlier stage and towards using new radiotherapy techniques to avoid treating these blood vessels if possible. The question of whether or not the use of preventive medicines like aspirin and cholesterol-lowering tablets helps to reverse this process is currently unanswered. The aim of this study is to measure the thickness (intima-medial thickness) of irradiated carotid artery walls and compare this to unirradiated arteries. There are many other causes for thickening of arteries (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and diabetes) and these may affect the ability to measure the effect of radiotherapy change to the artery wall. In order to address this, it is ideal to look at this process in patients who have only had one side of their neck treated and use the other side as a comparison. The study will also be looking for earlier signs of radiotherapy-related changes, such as stiffening of the artery wall, inflammation in the artery wall (a very early sign of radiotherapy-related change) and some markers in the blood that may indicate that this process is taking place. The null hypotheses of this study are: In irradiated carotid arteries, the mean intimal-medial thickness will be the same compared to unirradiated arteries. Serum biomarkers will not be elevated in radiation-induced carotid atherosclerosis. Development of radiation-induced carotid atherosclerosis is not affected by risk factor modulation (Aspirin, HMGCoA reductase inhibitors, smoking cessation). There is no difference in carotid arterial wall strain in irradiated carotid arteries versus unirradiated carotid arteries. Microbubble ultrasound will not be able to detect Inflammation in the carotid arteries as an early marker of atherosclerosis.

Radiotherapy is an integral component of the current multimodality treatment approach in locally advanced head and neck cancer (HNC). There is growing evidence that more aggressive treatment regimens improve tumour control and survival. However, intensified treatment is at the expense of increased toxicity, in particular severe acute mucositis. In addition and of increasing importance, late and irreversible treatment-related side effects, including xerostomia and swallowing dysfunction, occur in a considerable proportion of patients and negatively affect quality of life. High-risk human papilloma virus (HPV), specifically HPV type-16, is implicated as the causative factor in a proportion of HNC, especially those of the oropharynx. HPV-related cancers respond well to chemoradiotherapy compared to HNC related to tobacco and alcohol. Furthermore, the incidence of HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer is rising in Western countries. Given the significant toxicity associated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy, subsets of patients could be managed differently. The first objective of the project is to develop predictive models for radiation-induced dysphagia and xerostomia in HNC patients. Clinical characteristics, treatment parameters, dose-volume effects on healthy tissues and whole-genome genetic data will be considered. The second objective of the project is to study the prognostic value of HPV status together with a panel of tumour biomarkers in oropharyngeal cancer patients. The overall aim of the project is to stratify patients according to the risks (side-effects) and benefits (survival) of cancer treatment using the developed risk models. Clustering patients into different risk categories may aid treatment decision making reducing therapy toxicity without compromising survival.