Medical Oncology
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Medical Oncology includes not only the treatment of patients with cancer, but also the practice of cancer prevention, cancer screening and early diagnosis.
What is Medical Oncology?
Medical oncology is a branch of science that covers not only the treatment of patients with cancer, but also the fields of cancer prevention, screening, early diagnosis. That is, every stage of cancer concerns medical oncology. In addition, in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, cooperation is being made with various fields such as surgery or radiology, and the approach to the patient is planned multidisciplinary in accordance with scientific data.
How Is the Course of Treatment?
Treatment takes place in the form of intravenous or oral administration of the drug. But this practice varies depending on the type of cancer. Treatment planning depends on the type of cancer cell, the organ where it begins, and the region where it spreads. Treatment is carried out adjuvant to reduce the risk of recurrence of the disease, neoadjuvant to make the mass suitable for surgery or protect the organ, and palliative to prolong life and improve the quality of life in advanced stage disease. Treatment can also be done alone or in combination.
What Methods Is Medical Oncology Practiced?
Chemotherapy (Drug Therapy)
The purpose of chemotherapy is to ensure that cancer cells that grow uncontrollably due to certain changes in their structure disappear. In most cases, several drugs with different mechanisms of action are prescribed together, aimed at killing the cancer cell.
The use of drugs for the purpose of conducting cancer chemotherapy, first of all, on the 20th. it appeared at the beginning of the XVII century. I. Introduction of mustard gas and II. During its use in World War II, it was thought that it would have a similarly lethal effect on rapidly multiplying cancer cells that were found to be low in white globules. in the 1940s, a successful step was taken in the treatment of lymphomas by intravenous administration in the conditions of that day. This development led to the research of other substances that may be effective in cancer. Nowadays, a large number of chemotherapeutic drugs have been developed.
