- Understanding Cancer
- The human body is composed of multiple cells and these cells grow in a well-controlled and steady manner to produce more cells that keep the body growing and functioning normally. When these cells age or get damaged, they get replaced by new cells. But if this normal pattern is interrupted, there will be an abnormal reaction from the cells. This reaction will come from an area or organ of the body, where the cells continue to multiply and live beyond their life span. These cells are the malignant cells.
- Cancer is a medical condition in which mutation of cell leads to abnormal and uncontrolled multiplication of cells, in one organ or part of the body. These groups of malignant cells migrate and invade other parts of the body through blood & lymph, leading to cancer. Manifestation of the disease in the form of a tumour happens when a group of malignant cells come together to form a tissue.
- Cancer is now a chronic, lifestyle disease. Early detection and correct diagnosis are keys to planning the right treatment.
- Diagnosis
- The best way to fight cancer is to hit it early and that can be done through correct diagnosis. The process of identifying the right treatment plan for a patient starts with screening, which is available for breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer through Mammogram, PAP Smear and/or PSA, respectively. The process of diagnosis for other cancers is performed using various scans like PET-CT, CT, MRI and X-ray. Diagnosis is then followed by evaluation through blood tests, biopsy and liquid biopsy.
- Accurate diagnosis can be arrived at, by using a digital mammogram/MRI instead of conventional mammogram or ultrasound. This helps in identifying suspicious lesions more accurately than their historical counterparts. Image guided biopsies help to reduce false and negative rates.
- Multi-Disciplinary Team
- What is a Multidisciplinary team?
- Multidisciplinary team is a panel of specialists, who are experts in their own fields of study, who bring their expertise to each case. This panel of experts works together to ensure that comprehensive opinion is provided, to guide each patient through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, and that patients, who need several different therapies to treat their cancers, receive advice on the ideal combination.
- What we do at HCG CCK
- A team of experts at HCG CCK meets to discuss and contribute years of individual experience & expertise to address the most critical and complex cases. This gives the patient not just one specialist's opinion, but that of a team of specialists, carrying out in depth study of all documents and medical history, and then provide the patient a comprehensive holistic report on the best possible treatment plans and outcomes that suit the case.
- Treatment
- HCG CCK provides all possible treatment options, including radiation, surgery and medicine, under one roof, giving us an edge when it comes to available treatment options. We have a team of experienced radiation oncologists, who have expertise in using different forms of radiation therapies to perform radiosurgeries.
- We have over 220 oncologists and over 440 specialized physicians, associated with us, as part of the HCG group. The team of specialists at HCG includes neurosurgeons, head and neck surgeons, gastroenterologists, uroncologists, orthoncologists to provide treatment through surgeries. In addition to this we have a team of experienced medical oncologists.
- With the latest technology and expertise for cancer treatment available at HCG CCK, we are now a step closer to the cure.
Quality of Life
Quality of life is an individual perception of life, values, objectives, standards, and interests in the framework of culture. A number of illness-related factors exist that can affect quality of life. The term quality of life is increasingly being used as a primary outcome measure in studies to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment. Patients, generally, instead of measuring lipoprotein level, blood pressure, and the electrocardiogram, make decisions about their health care by means of quality of life which estimates the effects on outcomes important to themselves.
An increasingly important issue in oncology is to evaluate the quality of life in cancer patients. The cancer-specific quality of life is related to all stages of this disease. In fact, for all types of cancer patients, general instruments can be used to assess the overall impact of the patient's health status, based on their quality of life; however, on the other hand, cancer-specific instruments assess the impact of a specific cancer on quality of life. In some forms of cancer (Giloma for instance), quality of life has become an important endpoint for treatment comparison, in randomized controlled trials, so that in these patients clinical studies increasingly incorporate quality of life as an endpoint.