Oncology in the context of Performance status

A medical specialty is a branch of medical practice that is focused on a defined group of patients, diseases, skills, or philosophy. Examples include those branches of medicine that deal exclusively with children (pediatrics), cancer (oncology), laboratory medicine (pathology), or primary care (family medicine). After completing medical school or other basic training, physicians or surgeons and other clinicians usually further their medical education in a specific specialty of medicine by completing a multiple-year residency to become a specialist.

A neoplasm (/ˈniːoʊplæzəm, ˈniːə-/) is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists in growing abnormally, even if the original trigger is removed. This abnormal growth usually forms a mass, which may be called a tumour or tumor.

ICD-10 classifies neoplasms into four main groups: benign neoplasms, in situ neoplasms, malignant neoplasms, and neoplasms of uncertain or unknown behavior. Malignant neoplasms are also simply known as cancers and are the focus of oncology.

Molecular diagnostics is a collection of techniques used to analyze biological markers in the genome and proteome, and how their cells express their genes as proteins, applying molecular biology to medical testing. In medicine the technique is used to diagnose and monitor disease, detect risk, and decide which therapies will work best for individual patients, and in agricultural biosecurity similarly to monitor crop- and livestock disease, estimate risk, and decide what quarantine measures must be taken.

By analysing the specifics of the patient and their disease, molecular diagnostics offers the prospect of personalised medicine.These tests are useful in a range of medical specialties, including infectious disease, oncology, human leucocyte antigen typing (which investigates and predicts immune function), coagulation, and pharmacogenomics—the genetic prediction of which drugs will work best. They overlap with clinical chemistry (medical tests on bodily fluids).

Pharmacotherapy, also known as pharmacological therapy or drug therapy, is defined as medical treatment that utilizes one or more pharmaceutical drugs to improve ongoing symptoms (symptomatic relief), treat the underlying condition, or act as a prevention for other diseases (prophylaxis).

It can be distinguished from therapy using surgery (surgical therapy), radiation (radiation therapy), movement (physical therapy), or other modes. Among physicians, sometimes the term medical therapy refers specifically to pharmacotherapy as opposed to surgical or other therapy; for example, in oncology, medical oncology is thus distinguished from surgical oncology.

Chemotherapy (often abbreviated chemo, sometimes CTX and CTx) is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) in a standard regimen. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent (which almost always involves combinations of drugs), or it may aim only to prolong life or to reduce symptoms (palliative chemotherapy). Chemotherapy is one of the major categories of the medical discipline specifically devoted to pharmacotherapy for cancer, which is called medical oncology.

The term chemotherapy now means the non-specific use of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis (cell division) or to induce DNA damage (so that DNA repair can augment chemotherapy). This meaning excludes the more-selective agents that block extracellular signals (signal transduction). Therapies with specific molecular or genetic targets, which inhibit growth-promoting signals from classic endocrine hormones (primarily estrogens for breast cancer and androgens for prostate cancer), are now called hormonal therapies. Other inhibitions of growth-signals, such as those associated with receptor tyrosine kinases, are targeted therapy.

In oncology, polycythemia vera (PV) is an uncommon myeloproliferative neoplasm in which the bone marrow makes too many red blood cells. Approximately 98% of PV patients have a JAK2 gene mutation in their blood-forming cells (compared with 0.1-0.2% of the general population).

Most of the health concerns associated with PV, such as thrombosis, are caused by the blood being thicker as a result of the increased red blood cells.

House (also known as House, M.D.) is an American medical drama television series created by David Shore that originally aired on Fox from November 16, 2004, to May 21, 2012, for eight seasons. It features the life of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), an unconventional, misanthropic, cynical medical genius who, despite his dependence on pain medication, successfully leads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton–Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) in New Jersey. House often clashes with his fellow physicians, including his own diagnostic team, because many of his hypotheses about patients' illnesses are based on subtle or controversial insights, and his flouting of hospital rules and procedures frequently leads him into conflict with his boss, hospital administrator and Dean of Medicine Dr. Lisa Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein). House's only true friend is Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard), head of the Department of Oncology.

During the first three seasons, House's diagnostic team consists of Dr. Robert Chase (Jesse Spencer), Dr. Allison Cameron (Jennifer Morrison), and Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps). At the end of the third season, this team disbands. Rejoined by Foreman, House gradually selects three new team members: Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley (Olivia Wilde), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson), and Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn). Chase and Cameron continue to appear occasionally in different roles at the hospital. Kutner dies late in season five; early in season six, Cameron departs the hospital, and Chase returns to the diagnostic team. Thirteen takes a leave of absence for most of season seven, and her position is filled by medical student Martha M. Masters (Amber Tamblyn). Cuddy and Masters depart before season eight; Foreman becomes the new Dean of Medicine, while Dr. Jessica Adams (Odette Annable) and Dr. Chi Park (Lo Mutuc, credited as Charlyne Yi) join House's team.

Carl Zeiss Meditec AG is a multinational medical technology company and subsidiary of Carl Zeiss AG. It manufactures tools for eye examinations and medical lasers as well as solutions for neurosurgery, dentistry, gynecology and oncology. Among its products are the most common tools used by ophthalmologists and optometrists.

In October 2018, Carl Zeiss Meditec won FDA premarket approval for its ReLEx Smile laser system.

A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle physics. Accelerators are also used as synchrotron light sources for the study of condensed matter physics. Smaller particle accelerators are used in a wide variety of applications, including particle therapy for oncological purposes, radioisotope production for medical diagnostics, ion implanters for the manufacturing of semiconductors, and accelerator mass spectrometers for measurements of rare isotopes such as radiocarbon.

Large accelerators include the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, and the largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, operated by CERN. It is a collider accelerator, which can accelerate two beams of protons to an energy of 6.5 TeV and cause them to collide head-on, creating center-of-mass energies of 13 TeV. There are more than 30,000 accelerators in operation around the world.

Cancer immunotherapy (immuno-oncotherapy) is the stimulation of the immune system to treat cancer, improving the immune system's natural ability to fight the disease. It is an application of the fundamental research of cancer immunology (immuno-oncology) and a growing subspecialty of oncology.

Cancer immunotherapy exploits the fact that cancer cells often have tumor antigens, molecules on their surface that can bind to antibody proteins or T-cell receptors, triggering an immune system response. The tumor antigens are often proteins or other macromolecules (e.g., carbohydrates). Normal antibodies bind to external pathogens, but the modified immunotherapy antibodies bind to the tumor antigens marking and identifying the cancer cells for the immune system to inhibit or kill. The clinical success of cancer immunotherapy is highly variable between different forms of cancer; for instance, certain subtypes of gastric cancer react well to the approach whereas immunotherapy is not effective for other subtypes.

A fellowship is the period of medical training in the United States and Canada that a physician, dentist, or veterinarian may undertake after completing a specialty training program (residency). During this time (usually more than one year), the trainee is known as a fellow or fellow physician. Fellows are capable of acting as an attending physician or a consultant physician in the specialist field in which they were trained, such as internal medicine or pediatrics. After completing a fellowship in the relevant sub-specialty, the physician is permitted to practice without direct supervision by other physicians in that sub-specialty, such as cardiology or oncology.

Preoperative rehabilitation, prehabilitation or prehab, is a form of healthcare intervention that takes place before a medical or surgical intervention with the aim to reduce side effects and complications, and enhance recovery. Multidisciplinary team involvement can range from physiotherapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, doctors, pharmacologists, anesthesiologists, psychologists, psychiatrists and sports physiologists.

Prehab can be applied to surgical populations in oncology, cardiorespiratory, cardiovascular and orthopaedic settings. The intention is that increasing baseline fitness prior to surgery will allow for relatively higher fitness post-operatively. Prehabilitation interventions are tailored to the patient so that even those with high amounts of comorbidities can receive a positive outcome. Research evidence is mixed, but suggests that prehabilitation reduces hospital stays and therefore risk of hospital acquired infections such as pneumonia.

Martin J. Cline (born 1934) is an American geneticist who is the Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He did postdoctoral training in hematology-oncology at the University of Utah and was at the University of California, San Francisco before going to UCLA. His research has been in cell biology, molecular biology, and genetics.

Surgical oncology is the branch of surgery applied to oncology; it focuses on the surgical management of tumors, especially cancerous tumors.

As one of several modalities in the management of cancer, the specialty of surgical oncology has evolved in steps similar to medical oncology (pharmacotherapy for cancer), which grew out of hematology, and radiation oncology, which grew out of radiology. The Ewing Society—known today as the Society of Surgical Oncology—was started by surgeons interested in promoting the field of oncology. In 2011, the American Board of Surgery ratified Complex General Surgical Oncology via a specialty Board certification. The field was expected to continue expanding via the proliferation of cancer centers, as well as advanced minimally invasive techniques, palliative surgery, and neo-adjuvant treatments.