Medical Oncology
The greatest advancement in the fight against cancer is the fast-expanding range, and increasing effective, of medicines.
With newer chemotherapies such as cytotoxic agents, biologic agents and "targeted cancer therapies", our patients benefit from improved overall results and reduced side effects. Certain drugs do not even cause hair loss, nausea, vomiting or other significant side effects.
At PCC, chemotherapy is carefully administered by nurses with specialised training in Oncology under the close supervision of our senior consultant medical oncologists.
Chemotherapy can be applied in several ways:
Upfront or induction chemotherapy
- shrinks the tumour size before definitive local treatment with surgery or radiotherapy;
Concurrent chemo-therapy
- drugs are used as radio-sensitisers to improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy;
Adjuvant chemotherapy
- drugs are given after surgery or radiotherapy to treat invisible micrometastases and improve chances of cure;
Curative chemotherapy
- for very chemo-sensitive cancers like lymphoma, germ cell tumours and leukaemia;
High-dose chemotherapy and stem cell rescue;
Palliative chemotherapy (for advanced cancers)
- kills cancer cells, controls disease, preserves quality of life and prolongs survival.
