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Let’s Meet in Miami!

INSIDE:

Let’s Meet in Miami!

What is iGlob?

Meet a new ISOO Member

MASCC/ISOO Guidelines

April 2014

Greetings ISOO MembersLooking forward to seeing you in Miami!

Dr. Allan Hovan and Dr. Tanya Rouleau(Co-Editors, ISOO Newsletter)

Please join us June 26-28 for the 2014 MASCC/ISOO International Symposium to be held in beautiful Miami Beach, USA! This year’s meeting promises to be bigger and better than ever. Stimulating presentations, the always sold-out Mucositis workshop, updates from the Oral Care Study Group, a dedicated ISOO CE Course……………..and a chance to meet up with friends and oncology colleagues from around the world. You won’t want to miss it!

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I N T E R N A T I O N A L S O C I E T Y O F O R A L O N C O L O G Y N E W S L E T T E R

International Group for LLLT in Oncology (Barcelona)

A group of like-minded individuals with a range of expertise including radiation oncology, oral medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy and scientific research from four corners of our planet met in Barcelona in 2012 for intensive brainstorming which paved the way to the creation of the International Group of Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) in Oncology-Barcelona or iGLOB.

The main goal of iGLOB is to study the potential of LLLT in supportive cancer of cancer patients, thereby improving and maintaining quality of life for various anticipated complications (oral mucositis, trismus, lymphoedema, GVHD and others). These potential complications may arise during active treatment and through survivorship. Our understanding of photomedicine using low-lever laser therapy is increasingly mechanistically based. We are in a much better position with regard to the use of LLLT in oral mucositis with the two recent guidelines from MASCC/ISOO recommending use in high dose chemotherapy for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) with or without total body irradiation (TBI) and a suggestion for prevention of oral mucositis in head and neck cancer treated with radiotherapy (RT) without concomitant chemotherapy. We are in the process of extensive literature reviews and streamlining LLLT parameters for specific conditions as well as planning well-designed randomized control trials around the globe.

The founding iGlobers are (please see the attached photograph) from left to right; Joseph Dominguez (Spain), Raj Nair (Australia), Rene-Jean Bensadoun (France), Ron Vanderbrink (USA), James Carroll (UK), Liset Linsaat (Netherlands), Judith Raber-Durlacher (Netherlands) and Joel Epstein (USA)

Visit iGLOB at www.i-glob.org

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Meet new ISOO member, Anna Boltong

Dr Anna Boltong is Head of Cancer Information and

Support Services at Cancer Council Victoria. She has worked in supportive care in cancer in both the UK and

Australia over the last 8 years and qualified as a registered

dietitian 16 years ago. Anna has post graduate qualifications in nutrition, gastronomy and tertiary

education and has a varied professional background that includes health service management, clinical research and

education and training. Her PhD studies (completed in

2013) explored taste dysfunction in people receiving chemotherapy. Her research reinforced that 'taste' is not

taste. That is, the word 'taste' is often used by patients and clinicians to describe a raft of problems that extend

beyond taste as experienced on the taste buds. The word

'taste' colloquially refers to problems with the sense of smell and touch as well as problems with food hedonics

such as reduced food liking or appetite. It is not until a problem is adequately defined that solutions can be

designed and tested. Boltong's Taxonomy of 'Taste'   is a

classification system that uses patient descriptors as clues to sensory or hedonic problem at hand and may suggest a

particular course of action in lieu of routine assessment

techniques and clinical guidelines for flavour related

problems for use in the clinical oncology setting. Dr Boltong is co-editor of the MASCC Society News and has

written and reviewed for the Journal of Supportive Care in

Cancer. She is a key contributor to the dysgeusia systematic review update currently being undertaken by

the MASCC/ISOO oral care study group.

I N T E R N A T I O N A L S O C I E T Y O F O R A L O N C O L O G Y N E W S L E T T E R

ISOO Membership

MASCC/ISOO Guidelines

Dr. Raj Lalla has announced that the summary paper reporting the

MASCC/ISOO Mucositis Guidelines has now been published in Early

View in the journal Cancer. In due course, it will be assigned to an issue

and published in print. This represents the culmination of the work of

many members of ISOO who served as reviewers for the systematic

review. We can be proud of this publication as it will serve as a standard

for evidence-based management of oral mucositis.