Oncology

The word oncology is derived from Greek word ‘onkos’ meaning mass or bulk or tumor. The branch of science that concerns about cancer or tumor is referred as oncology. The individual who practice oncology is referred as oncologists. The essential part of oncology is to diagnose the individual who suffer from symptoms such as unexplained anemia, sudden weight loss, fatigue, unknown origin fever, para neoplastic phenomena and other related signs and symptoms. The diagnostic methods include the following

• Endoscopy: It includes upper gastrointestinal or lower gastrointestinal,  nasendoscopy or bronchoscopy
• X-ray
• CT scanning
• MRI scanning
• Biopsy : It includes either incisional biopsy or excisional biopsy
• Single photon emission computed tomography
• Scintigraphy
• Nuclear medicine
• Tumor markers

In general, tissue is diagnosed for the proper identification of cancer formation. If it is not possible then empirical therapy is done without any exact diagnosis and it is predicted depending on the x-ray scan history.  The treatment of cancer is completely dependent on nature of tumor detected. Some of the identification may require immediate action such as chemotherapy and in normal cases it begins from blood test and physical examination as such. Surgery is practiced to remove the cancer area. It is possible to operate only if the depth of infection is shallow. There is a chance that after surgery, tumor growth can be seen in case of metastases. So surgery can improve health only to a limited period. In other words it can increase the survival rate. The process of debulking shall reduce the overall amount of tumor tissues found.  The chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used as a first line tumor treatment. This treatment is used as palliative treatment. Adjuvant therapies are also used when the macroscopic tumor are excised to an extent before surgery.

Questions:

• What is oncology?
• How do you diagnose the tumor?
• How do you treat tumor formation?