Alarmingly, oral cancer is becoming more common in young people with no risk factors, and it is possible these patients will experience worse outcomes. Over the next 10 years, the rate of oral cancer is expected to increase by 30 percent. Rates of overall survival for patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) have remained poor and relatively stagnant for decades – more than half of OSCC patients will experience recurrence or metastases.
A patient presenting to the oral surgery clinic with cancer often has a painful mass that interferes with their ability to eat or speak. Significant weight loss often ensues. Treatment typically involves aggressive surgery and radiation, often resulting in life-altering side effects – including changes in appearance and difficulty eating and speaking.
There is an urgent need to improve our treatment of oral cancer.
An unexplored contributor to oral cancer is the oral microbiome – the community of bacteria that live in the mouth. Anthony Morlandt, DDS, MD, FACS, and Carissa Thomas, MD, PhD, FACS – with funding from the OMS Foundation – are leading an investigation at the University of Alabama-Birmingham to study oral cancer patients and understand how their oral microbiome impacts their ability to fight cancer. At the same time, they are working to decipher how bacteria interact with tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment to discover how the oral microbiome can be harnessed to treat cancer.
“We see patients dying of oral cancer despite giving them the best care we have to offer,” Dr. Thomas said. “This drives our work to move oral cancer treatment in novel directions. This work will help us understand how the oral microbiome can be harnessed in novel ways to treat oral cancer. Our hope is to find a way to manipulate the oral microbiome to create a tumor-suppressive environment and change the metastatic potential of OSCC. Our preliminary research, with crucial support from the OMS Foundation, is laying the groundwork for future research grants and prospective clinical studies addressing early detection, risk assessment and treatment for head and neck cancer.”
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