We went back to high school to promote iGEM and introduce our project to students. Through this lecture, we hoped they can realize that everything they learn now is indeed useful in reality so that they may can be more passionate towards learning. We also wanted to give them the concept that synthetic biology application can solve problems and that the knowledge in books shall guide them to their bright futures.
Visit Dr. Kao from the Department of division radiation oncology of Taoyuan Min-Sheng General Hospital. We visit Dr. Kao from the Department of division radiation oncology of Taoyuan Min-Sheng General Hospital, who gave us this special opportunity to get more information about clinical diagnosis of Oral Cancers.
Q: How is oral cancer diagnosed?
A: We determine oral cancer by the changes in morphology through the doctors’ observation. However, changes that happen as early as in the molecular level have not yet been able to help the diagnosis.
Q: According to the previous question, is it the dentists that are more likely to discover oral cancer?
A: Basically, oral cancer is most likely discovered by dentists and ENT doctors. However, with oral cancer being common nowadays, the Health Promotion Administration has been requesting all clinics and departments in hospitals to keep an eye on precancerous lesions such as white/red patches in the mouth and to arrange the patients undergo a biopsy once these changes are observed.
Q: Is there high possibility for the result of a biopsy to be false positive?
A: Biopsy is pretty much accurate, but the result still varies from the tissue that is obtained, and that would depend on the doctor’s experience.
Q: According to your experience, at which stage have oral cancer developed when the patients were diagnosed of the disease?
A: This is hard to say since some patients happen to find out early while some never sought for treatment even they have already perceived abnormality.
Q: Is it common that people don’t seek for treatment after perceiving abnormality?
A: Yes, it is very common. That’s why the Health Promotion Administration have requested all doctors to check on the patient’s mouth once they know that he/she has a habit of smoking or chewing betel buts so that pathological changes can be noted as early as possible. This is by far the best strategy that can be adopted.
Q: If pathological changes can be discovered very early, is it possible to verify the position using devices?
A: A CT scan is able to detect a target which has a diameter more than 1 cm, and a phase scan can detect a target which has a diameter more than 0.5 cm. To discover any changes before they can be seen by the naked eye depends on a biomarker that has high specificity towards oral cancer and that the result of testing the biomarker’s existence can be well combined with phase scan.
Q: It is known that cancer happens because of gene mutation. Would knowing the conditions of gene mutation help doctors treat patients and make predictions?
A: Yes, and it is the reason that many researches regarding copy therapies, which is to block cancer pathways during development or to induce apoptosis, are being conducted.
Q: Are there patients who develop oral cancer because of the HPV virus?
A: Yes, HPV can cause not only genital cancers but also oral cancer through oral sex or French kiss.
Q: What does it take for doctors to adapt a technique or a product?
A: If we’re looking at medicine than it depends on the results after clinical trials, and if we’re looking at a technique than it depends on the number of people that are applicable to it.
Q: Although oral cancer is listed as one of the top ten fatal cancers of the country, it is not hard to discover, therefore we suppose that the survival rate for the first year is high?
A:No, because oral cancer varies a lot between different stages. There may be patients whose conditions deteriorate in a short period of time and that it is hard for them to recover. In addition, the top ten fatal cancers often affect more patients so there tend to be larger numbers of death. For instance, breast cancer is often a high-ranking cancer on the list because it affects a large number of patients, but the truth is that the treatments are usually effective. On the contrary, pancreas cancer doesn’t rank higher than breast cancer is because the population affected is smaller, not because that pancreas cancer cases are more likely to be cured. Therefore, we should not refer to the effectiveness of treatment by looking at the rankings.
