View clinical trials related to Cancer of the Tongue.
Filter by:This study will assess the benefit of postoperative adjuvant radiotherapy in patients with an early oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) having tumor thickness more than or equal to 5mm. The study population will consist of patients who have been treated by surgery for early stage oral tongue cancers. Patients with a close or positive margin (</= 5mm) and or with metastatic neck node(s) will be excluded. Selected patients will be randomized into two groups. The group I will be observed after surgery and group II will receive adjuvant radiotherapy as per protocol.
In terms of incidence, cancer of the tongue is one of the leading cancers in France. Moreover, this cancer is associated with physiological complications ranging from swallowing disorders to loss of taste. Following surgery, impaired perception of food taste may lead to cachexia. It is therefore necessary to carry out research in the field of impaired taste, notably with regard to the regeneration of taste buds. However, there is currently no available functional model of taste bud cells. It is therefore necessary to obtain a cell line of human taste cells. These immortalised human cells will allow us to better orient our investigations for applications in humans: search for and characterisation of "taste modifiers" synthesised using organic chemistry, able to trigger the perception of food in cases of taste loss or taste impairment. Moreover, given recent studies conducted by the investigating team proposing the existence of a fatty taste and its implication in obesity, the work of the team could be oriented towards the synthesis of lipid-receptor agonists, by analogy with artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. The availability of these chemical molecules would lead to a reduction in lipid intake as these agents contain no (or very few) calories. They will act as an organoleptic decoy.
In head and neck cancer, areas of tumours with low oxygen supply (called tumour hypoxia) harbour cells that are resistant to radiation and are prone to metastasize. Modern radiotherapy techniques are precise enough to deliver radiation to these small areas and could be used to target these areas to receive higher doses of radiation than the rest of the tumour to overcome resistance. Hypoxia can be "seen" in the body using special imaging such as [F-18]-FAZA-PET ([F-18]-Fluoroazomycin arabinoside positron emission tomography) but it has not been tested as a method for creating radiation treatment targets. As part of regular pathology tumour tissue is sliced extremely thinly (<1/100th of a millimeter) and stained so that individual cells can be seen under a microscope. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a special type of "stain" that can specifically highlight hypoxic areas. This method is considered the most accurate way to inspect for the presence of hypoxia. There is not a specific staining target for hypoxia ordinarily, but when patients ingest a substance called pimonidazole-HCl it builds up specifically in hypoxic areas and can be targeted for IHC staining. In this study participants with oral tongue cancer will have a [F-18]-FAZA-PET scan and take a single dose of oral pimonidazole-HCl before having surgery to remove their cancer. The whole tumour will be used to create microscope slides using very thin slices of the tumour. The slices will be stained using IHC to show where the pimonidazole has built up. Digital scans of the slides will be made using a laser scanner. The hypoxia seen on their FAZA-PET scan will be "matched" with hypoxia on the electronic slides to see if the FAZA truly shows where hypoxia is in tumours and if it could be used as a way to plan radiation treatments to deliver more radiation to just those areas.