Oncology
Oncology is a
branch of medicine that deals with cancer studies and develops methods and
techniques for data processing. Those who practice Oncology are called
oncologists.
There are two main branches of Oncology:
1. Medical oncology
2. Radio-Oncology
MEDICAL ONCOLOGY has helped with CHEMOTHERAPY, while Oncology is and remains to a lot of new
technologies, especially in the form of new radiation-delivery methods.
As incredible as
it may seem, advances in Oncology of just the past two decades has led to much
lower mortality rates and astronomically higher survival rate of the patient
they were just 20 years ago.
Progress in the
detection of cancer and raising public awareness about CANCER also contributed to the increased survival rate of the
patient. For most types of cancer are oncologists now able to treat patients
successfully through detection, with which to begin treatment before the cancer
has a chance to grow out of control.One of the most recent advances in
radiation oncology is TomoTherapy, a commercialized type of IMRT (intensity
intensity modulated radiation therapy) that creates a new and more effective
radiation-delivery. TOMOTHERAPY is a
perfect example of the work being done in radio-Oncology.
TomoTherapy
offers not actually new technologies, but rather contains several older
technologies detection and a delivery system. It also improves the delivery of
radiation to a tumor site by turning around the patient, so delivering a higher
dose of global radiation of multiple angles rather than many fixed beams of low
RADIATION.