Cancer Center - Overview

Components of Cancer Care: Medical, Radiation, Surgical

Cancer treatment can involve one or all of the following types of care:

Surgical Oncology – Tumors that are resectable (surgically removable) are typically removed, but the removal may be preceded by radiation or chemotherapy to shrink them first. Removal may also be carried out first with follow-up radiation or chemotherapy to address any remaining cancer cells. For more information about surgery, click here.

Medical Oncology – Medical management of cancers involves the use of chemotherapy and additional cancer-fighting drugs such as tamoxifen (for breast cancer) and others. These drugs destroy cancer cells by poisoning them. Medical management as a primary cancer treatment is most commonly employed to fight blood cancers such as lymphoma or multiple myeloma, in which the cancer cells are not grouped together in a solid tumor or tumors that can be removed surgically. For more information about medical oncology, click here.

Radiation Oncology – Radiation treatments attack tumors where they live to shrink and kill them and their blood supply. In some cases, radiation alone is enough to destroy a tumor, in other cases, radiation shrinks a tumor enough to allow surgery to take place. In other cases, radiation and chemotherapy are given together to enhance tumor "kill." In some types of cancer, such as prostate cancer, "seeds" that produce low-level radiation are implanted adjacent to the tumor to shrink it over time. You can generally receive radiation treatments to a specific part of your body only once in your life – if the cancer recurs in the same location at a later date, another treatment will need to employed. For more information about radiation oncology, click here.