Mouth and throat cancer: evidence for best surgical approaches uncertain

Bariatric surgery and marked weight loss is likely to improve knee complaints but there is a need for high quality studies

12 RCTs were included in this Cochrane review update of surgical approches for the management of oral and pharyngeal cancer. The certaintly of the evidence was very low as there were limited numbers of studies for each comparison.

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Sexual behaviours and oral cancer risk

The treatment effects seemed more pronounced in women, young people and first attempters of suicide.

20 studies reporting 21 data sets were included in this review of the association of sexual behaviours and oral and oropharyngeal cancers. The review suggests that some sexual behaviours increase risk but the quality of the evidence is limited and quantitative estimates of the strength of these associations are not reliable.

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Alcohol consumption increased oral cancer risk

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This new review investigated the effect of alcohol on 23 cancer types. They included 572 case-control and cohort studies and using meta-analysis and a dose–response meta-regression model found relative risks for heavy drinkers compared with nondrinkers and occasional drinkers were 5.13 for oral and pharyngeal cancer, 4.95 for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, 1.44 for colorectal, 2.65 for laryngeal and 1.61 for breast cancer.

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Limited evidence to decide whether visual screening reduces the death rate for oral cancer

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Yesterday we looked at a review of the effectiveness of oral examination to detect potentially malignant disorders and mouth cancer today we are looking the latest version of the Cochrane review on screening programmes for the detection and prevention of oral cancer. The overall aim of this review was to assess the effectiveness of current [read the full story…]