Surgical oncology is the branch of surgery which focuses on the surgical management of malignant neoplasms (cancer).

Whether surgical oncology constitutes a medical specialty per se is the topic of a heated debate. Today, most physicians would agree that it is simply impossible for any one surgeon to be competent in the surgical management of all malignant disease.

Therefore, the term surgical oncologist is generally applied to a surgeon of any surgical specialty who develop specific interest and skills in the surgical treatment of cancer in his or her respective specialty. Most often, surgical oncologist refers to a general surgical oncologist (cf. General Surgery), but thoracic surgical oncologists, gynecologic oncologists and so forth can all be considered surgical oncologists.

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Annals of Oncology - current issue

in this issue
Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0000

The use of sedation to relieve cancer patients' suffering at the end of life: addressing critical issues
Cherny, N. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0000

What is the role of chemotherapy in estrogen receptor-positive, advanced breast cancer?
Barrios, C. H., Sampaio, C., Vinholes, J., Caponero, R. Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0000
Most breast tumors depend on female sex hormones for development and growth, thus being amenable to endocrine therapies. In the management of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, advanced breast cancer, conventional wisdom dictates the use of endocrine therapy for patients with good prognostic features, whereas chemotherapy is recommended for the treatment of visceral crisis. There is, however, considerable uncertainty regarding the best initial strategy for patients with poor prognostic features other than visceral crisis, such as small-volume visceral involvement and a short disease-free interval after adjuvant therapy. In this article, we examine the role of chemotherapy in ER-positive, advanced breast cancer. Our review of the literature suggests that, in the absence of visceral crisis, endocrine agents should always be considered a major option for the initial treatment of ER-positive, metastatic breast cancer due to their proven efficacy and favorable toxicity profile. Although certain chemotherapy agents can induce higher response rates and more rapid responses, which are desirable effects in particular situations, the up-front use of chemotherapy does not seem to influence the overall outcome of the disease. In the subset of patients with epidermal growth factor type 2-positive disease, on the other hand, current data still do not support the use of endocrine agents alone.

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