Cancer: Interprofessional Care and Complications
Cancer treatment goals
- Goals
- Cure therapy
- Surgery alone or periods of adjunctive systemic therapy
- Timeframe to “cure” may differ according to the tumor and its characteristics
- Control therapy
- Initial course and maintenance therapy
- Palliation therapy
- Palliation goal
- Relief or control of symptoms
- Maintain quality of life
- Palliative care and treatment are not mutually exclusive and can take concurrently
- Palliation goal
- Cure therapy
Personalized cancer medicine
- Genetic information is used to customize decisions about
- Prevention
- Diagnosis
- Treatment
- Targeted therapy
- Aims at a cancer’s specific genes or proteins that contribute to cancer growth and survival
- Biopsy can help determine whether a tumor has the specific target
- Pharmacogenomics
- Study of genomic variation associated with drug responses
- Not all types of cancer have personalized treatment options
- Costly
- Time-consuming
- Not covered by insurance
