Medical Oncology

Medical oncology includes lab, physician visits, and treatment.

Our medical oncologists are physicians who have special training in diagnosing and treating cancer in adults using chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, biological therapy, and targeted therapy. The medical oncologist often is the main health care provider for someone who has cancer.

Our patients receive their cancer treatment infusion/injections in a dedicated infusion suite. Care is provided by specially trained and certified registered nurses. Additional care team members include a Licensed Certified Social Worker, Registered Dietician, Nurse Navigator and others as needed.

Chemotherapy

These drugs may be prescribed to kill cancer cells to keep them from spreading. Chemotherapy can be used before surgery to shrink a tumor, after surgery to kill remaining cancer cells and to help reduce symptoms. Chemotherapy may be delivered by mouth as a pill or liquid, by IV infusion in a vein, or as an injection.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is treatment that uses a person’s own immune system to fight cancer. Immunotherapy can boost or change how the immune system works so it can find and attack cancer cells. This can be done in a couple of ways:

• Stimulating, or boosting, the natural defenses of your immune system so it works harder or smarter to find and attack cancer cells
• Making substances in a lab that are just like immune system components and using them to help restore or improve how your immune system works to find and attack cancer cells

Immunotherapy works better for some types of cancer than for others. It’s used by itself for some of these cancers, but for others it seems to work better when used with other types of treatment.

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy is a type of cancer treatment that targets proteins that control how cancer cells grow, divide, and spread. It is the foundation of precision medicine. 
For some types of cancer, the tumor is tested to see if it contains targets for which a certain drug can be used to treat the cancer. 
Testing your cancer for targets that could help you and your doctor choose your treatment is called biomarker testing. You may need to have a biopsy for biomarker testing.

Hormone Therapy

Some cancers depend on hormones to grow. Because of this, treatments that block or alter hormones can sometimes help slow or stop the growth of these cancers. Treating cancer with hormones is called hormone therapy, or endocrine therapy. Hormone therapy is mostly used to treat certain kinds of breast cancer and prostate cancer that depend on sex hormones to grow. A few other cancers can be treated with hormone therapy, too. Surgery to remove hormone-making organs can also be used as a form of hormone therapy.