In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally consists of a series of questions about the patient's medical history followed by an examination based on the reported symptoms. Together, the medical history and the physical examination help to determine a diagnosis and devise the treatment plan. These data then become part of the medical record.
Rituximab, sold under the brand name Rituxan among others, is a monoclonal antibody medication used to treat certain autoimmune diseases and types of cancer. It is used for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, pemphigus vulgaris, myasthenia gravis and Epstein–Barr virus-positive mucocutaneous ulcers. It is given by slow injection into a vein. Biosimilars of Rituxan include Blitzima, Riabni, Ritemvia, Rituenza, Rixathon, Ruxience, and Truxima.
Vincent Theodore DeVita Jr. is the Amy and Joseph Perella Professor of Medicine at Yale Cancer Center, and a Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health. He directed the Yale Cancer Center from 1993 to 2003. He has been president of the American Cancer Society (2012-2013). He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of oncology for his work on combination-chemotherapy treatments.
The era of cancer chemotherapy began in the 1940s with the first use of nitrogen mustards and folic acid antagonist drugs. The targeted therapy revolution has arrived, but many of the principles and limitations of chemotherapy discovered by the early researchers still apply.
Epirubicin is an anthracycline drug used for chemotherapy. It can be used in combination with other medications to treat breast cancer in patients who have had surgery to remove the tumor. It is marketed by Pfizer under the trade name Ellence in the US and Pharmorubicin or Epirubicin Ebewe elsewhere.
MOPP is a combination chemotherapy regimen used to treat Hodgkin lymphoma. The acronym is derived from the component drugs of the regimen:
A chemotherapy regimen is a regimen for chemotherapy, defining the drugs to be used, their dosage, the frequency and duration of treatments, and other considerations. In modern oncology, many regimens combine several chemotherapy drugs in combination chemotherapy. The majority of drugs used in cancer chemotherapy are cytostatic, many via cytotoxicity.
T-cell lymphoma is a rare form of cancerous lymphoma affecting T-cells. Lymphoma arises mainly from the uncontrolled proliferation of T-cells and can become cancerous.
Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), also termed primary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of the central nervous system (DLBCL-CNS), is a primary intracranial tumor appearing mostly in patients with severe immunodeficiency. It is a subtype and one of the most aggressive of the diffuse large B-cell lymphomas.
ABVD is a chemotherapy regimen used in the first-line treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma, replacing the older MOPP protocol. It consists of concurrent treatment with the chemotherapy drugs:
Allen Caruthers Steere is a professor of rheumatology at Harvard University and previously at Tufts University and Yale University. Steere and his mentor, Stephen Malawista of Yale University, are credited with discovering and naming Lyme disease, and he has published almost 300 scholarly articles on Lyme disease during his more than 40 years of studies of this infection. At a ceremony in Hartford, Connecticut in 1998, Governor John G. Rowland declared September 24 to be "Allen C. Steere Day."
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is "an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention that systematically reviews the evidence of effectiveness and develops recommendations for clinical preventive services". The task force, a volunteer panel of primary care clinicians with methodology experience including epidemiology, biostatistics, health services research, decision sciences, and health economics, is funded, staffed, and appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
A clinical prediction rule or clinical probability assessment specifies how to use medical signs, symptoms, and other findings to estimate the probability of a specific disease or clinical outcome.
Chemoimmunotherapy is chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy. Chemotherapy uses different drugs to kill or slow the growth of cancer cells; immunotherapy uses treatments to stimulate or restore the ability of the immune system to fight cancer. A common chemoimmunotherapy regimen is CHOP combined with rituximab (CHOP-R) for B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas.
A hormone-receptor-positive (HR+) tumor is a tumor which consists of cells that express receptors for certain hormones. The term most commonly refers to estrogen receptor positive tumors, but can also include progesterone receptor positive tumors. Estrogen-receptor-positive tumors depend on the presence of estrogen for ongoing proliferation.
Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) is a type of lymphoma in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, where multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells are present in the patient's lymph nodes. The condition was named after the English physician Thomas Hodgkin, who first described it in 1832. Symptoms may include fever, night sweats, and weight loss. Often, nonpainful enlarged lymph nodes occur in the neck, under the arm, or in the groin. Those affected may feel tired or be itchy.
Nivolumab, sold under the brand name Opdivo, is a medication used to treat a number of types of cancer. This includes melanoma, lung cancer, malignant pleural mesothelioma, renal cell carcinoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, head and neck cancer, urothelial carcinoma, colon cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, liver cancer, gastric cancer, and esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer. It is used by slow injection into a vein.
High-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant (HDC/BMT), also high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplant, was an ineffective treatment regimen for metastatic breast cancer, and later high-risk breast cancer, that was considered promising during the 1980s and 1990s. With an overall idea that more is better, this process involved taking cells from the person's bone marrow to store in a lab, then to give such high doses of chemotherapy drugs that the remaining bone marrow was destroyed, and then to inject the cells taken earlier back into the body as replacement. It was ultimately determined to be no more effective than normal treatment, and to have significantly higher side effects, including treatment-related death.
Kathleen I. Pritchard, is the head of oncology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, specializing in breast cancer therapies, and leading the clinical trials division of the centre. She has authored numerous studies on women's health, breast cancer, hormone replacement therapy, public health, and research methodology. According to Thomson Reuters, Pritchard was one of the most cited researchers in the world in 2014 and 2015.
This is a historical timeline of the development and progress of cancer treatments, which includes time of discovery, progress, and approval of the treatments.
