Treating Cancer with Medicine or Chemotherapy
Whenever appropriate, new patients are evaluated within Multidisciplinary Specialty Clinics comprising surgical, radiation and medical oncologists. The Department of Medical Oncology continues to introduce new drugs to treat cancer. Drugs like Herceptin, which improves the chance of survival for many breast cancer patients, are being offered to eligible patients. Overseas patients with diseases that had no effective treatment in the past, such as Glivec-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumour and renal cell carcinoma, now seek treatment here.
Chemotherapy
How Chemotherapy Works
Chemotherapy is the use of anti-cancer drugs to kill cancer cells and prevent them from reproducing themselves. Chemotherapy is given in cycles. Each cycle consists of a treatment period followed by a resting period. The resting period is to allow the body to recover before the next treatment cycle starts.
Customising Chemotherapy
The specific medicine or combination recommended, as well as the frequency of the treatment, depends on:
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The kind of cancer, |
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It's location |
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The person’s height and weight, and |
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How quickly the healthy normal cells recover from the treatment |
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Hormone Therapy
Hormone therapy controls cancer by changing the hormonal environment. Hormones are distributed in the bloodstream and help to regulate and coordinate growth, metabolism and reproduction. Breast and prostate cancers respond well to hormone treatment. It is usually administered via oral medication.
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Different hormone therapies available:
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Herceptin |
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Anastrozole |
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Letrozole |
Biological Therapy
Biological therapy, also called immunotherapy, is a form of treatment that uses the body's own immune system to fight infection and disease or to protect the body from some of the side effects of treatment. Monoclonal antibodies, interferon, interleukin-2, and white blood cell-stimulating factors such as GM-CSF and G-CSF, are forms of biological therapy. For more Information please click here
Find out how biological therapy has increased survival of Lymphoma patients
New treatment Improves Survival of Lymphoma Patients
Advances in Treatment
This include the use of:
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Chemotherapy drugs that do not cause severe hair loss (e.g. vinorelbine, gemcitabine); |
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Use of oral rather than injectable chemotherapy (e.g. capecitabine); |
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Increasing use of drug treatments to reduce the size of primary tumours before surgery; |
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More widespread use of non-cross-resistant drugs (e.g. paclitaxel, docetaxel, irinotecan, oxaliplatin); |
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More frequent combination of chemotherapy with radiotherapy; |
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Increased use of target-selective biological anti-cancer reagents such as humanised antibodies (e.g. rituximab, trastuzumab) and drugs directed against cancer-selective targets (e.g. STI 571). |
Gold Standard Protocols
This include:
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Developmental therapeutics |
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Chemo-radiotherapy |
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High-dose drug treatment with autologous marrow transplantation |
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Non myeloablative allogenoeic stem cell transplantation |
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Immunotherapies |
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Traditional chinese medicine |
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