Oncology is the branch of medicine that researches, identifies and treats cancer. A physician who works in the field of oncology is an oncologist.
Oncologists must first diagnose a cancer, which is usually carried out via biopsy, endoscopy, X-ray, CT scanning, MRI, PET scanning, ultrasound or other radiological methods. Nuclear medicine can also be used to diagnose cancer, as can blood tests or tumor markers. Oncology is often linked with hematology, which is the branch of medicine that deals with blood and blood-related disorders.
Medical Oncology speciality team usually works in conjunction with Surgical Oncology or Radiation Oncology to give the best clinical outcomes. medical oncology speciality team works towards preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer by offering the highest levels of treatment protocols and customised multi-modality therapies.
Chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses drugs to destroy cancer cells. But it can also harm quickly dividing healthy cells, such as those that lie in the mouth ,bone marrow , intestines and hair follicle Damage to those healthy cells may cause side effects such as oral ulcers, mucositis, drop in blood counts, and hair fall. Damage to healthy cells may cause side effects.
Often, side effects get better or go away after chemotherapy is over. Chemotherapy is divided into two categories Neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapies. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a type which is delivered before surgery or radiotherapy, while Adjuvant Chemotherapy is delivered after the surgery or radiotherapy. Chemotherapy may be used to destroy cancer cells that have come back (recurrent cancer) or spread to other parts of the body (metastatic cancer). Earlier, there used to be less number of chemotherapy drugs but today, we have several options of giving 1st, 2nd, and 3rd line drugs. Low dose metronomic chemotherapy is also showing some promising results.
Immunotherapy is a breakthrough innovation in Cancer Care. Immunotherapy is the process of activating the immune cells to fight against cancer cells it is a personalised treatment which intends to enhance the body’s defence mechanism to combat and destroy cancer cells. Immunotherapy uses the cells made by the patient’s own body, or treatments made in a laboratory to improve or restore immune system function.
The reprogramming of the immune system in a patient’s body is done through three ways, personalised to the specific cancer condition, namely – Drug therapy, Dendritic cell therapy and Cancer Vaccines. In the first type, the drugs induced boost the antibodies to destroy cancer cells. Dendritic cell therapy involves the usage of T-cells, the cells which fight infection, are removed from the blood, later modified in laboratory and injected to the patient’s body to treat cancer cells. Cancer vaccines when injected, triggers the immune system to recognize and destroy that antigen or related materials, thus killing the cancer cells and put an end to their progress.
Targeted therapy is a cancer treatment that uses drugs and is completely different from the traditional chemotherapy. The modality known as targeted therapy helps in stopping the cancer from growing and spreading to other organs. They work in a pattern of targeting the specific genes or proteins. These genes and proteins are found in cancer cells or in other cells which could be related to cancer growth, like blood vessel cells.
Some cancers use hormones to grow or develop, which means the cancer is hormone sensitive or hormone dependent. Hormone therapy for cancer uses medicines to block or reduce the amount of hormones in the body to stop or slow down the growth of cancer. Hormone therapy stops hormones from being developed or prevents hormones from making cancer cells grow and divide.
Radiation therapy is a type of cancer treatment that uses beams of intense energy to kill cancer cells. Radiation therapy most often uses X-rays, but protons or other types of energy also can be used.
Radiation therapy damages cells by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. While both healthy and cancerous cells are damaged by radiation therapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to destroy as few normal, healthy cells as possible. Normal cells can often repair much of the damage caused by radiation.