Since the identification of
Nitrogen mustard as a non-specific DNA alkylating agent and its clinical
assessment by Gilman and Goodman at Yale University in 1942 for Lymphoma treatment,
the field of medical oncology has rapidly expanded.It relies on understanding
and exploring numerous factors affecting cancer patient’s outcome,
including:1)
Familiarity with the natural history of various malignancies and understanding
the significant of patients' well-being as predictor to survive and tolerate
therapy, scored as the "Performance Status";2) Basic biology events
of normal cycling cells, and principals involved in cancer pathogenesis named
"hallmarks of cancer," including sustaining proliferative signaling,
evading growth suppressors, resisting cell death, enabling replicative
immortality, angiogenesis, activating invasion and metastasis, and recently
expanded to include also reprogramming of energy metabolism and evading immune
destruction .3) Identification of tumor features or biomarkers for tailored treatment
approach including: "targeted" therapy (i.e., estrogen receptor
expression for hormonal manipulations in breast cancer. (Read more)
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