Smoking doubles the risk of developing esophageal cancer in people with Barrett’s esophagus, according to a new study in Gastroenterology (January 13, 2012). The study, which was conducted over 13 years by an international team of researchers, involved more than 3,000 Barrett’s esophagus patients. The researchers found that those who smoked tobacco were twice as likely to develop esophageal cancer than those who did not. “We found that tobacco smoking

Patients treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for head and neck cancer reported increasingly better quality of life after treatment than patients receiving other forms of radiotherapy, according to a study presented at the recent Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Phoenix. At a January 27 press conference, Allen Chen, MD, a radiation oncologist at the University of California, Davis, reported the findings of a quality-of-life questionnaire that was

Grape seed extract can kill head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells in both cell lines and mouse models while leaving healthy cells unharmed, according to a study in Carcinogenesis (January 19, 2012). “It’s a rather dramatic effect,” said Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, an investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and a professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, in a press release. It depends in large part