The affiliated Medtourism Group Institutes of Oncology in Athens (Greece) provide comprehensive treatments of radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and immunotherapy, for the entire spectrum of human malignant diseases.
We plan every patient’s treatment individually, with the purpose to offer the highest quality treatment at the earliest possible opportunity. The personal medical associate organizes even the most specific details, ensuring that the patient feels comfortable and as much at home as possible.
The Medtourism Group affiliated Oncologists are concerned with:
- The diagnosis of any cancer in a person
- Therapy (e.g. surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other modalities)
- Follow-up of cancer patients after successful treatment
- Palliative care of patients with terminal malignancies
- Ethical questions surrounding cancer care
- Screening efforts of the relatives of patients; in types of cancer that are thought to have a hereditary basis, such as breast cancer
Diagnosis
The highly trained and experienced oncologists would propose various health treatments, depending on your clinical stage and condition. Starting with the most important diagnostic tool, the medical history [the character of the complaints and any specific symptoms (fatigue, weight loss, unexplained anemia, fever of unknown origin, paraneoplastic phenomena and other signs)]; and afterwards with different diagnostic methods, such as:
- Biopsy (incisional or excisional)
- Endoscopy (gastrointestinal tract) / bronchoscopy
- X-rays, CT scan, MRI scan, PET scan, ultrasound
- Scintigraphy, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, Positron emission tomography
- Blood tests, including tumor markers; our team of oncologists will solve the puzzling diagnostic problems; revealing the location of the malignancy and will offer the current therapeutic interventions that will be necessary.
Therapy
Depending on the nature of the tumor identified; the therapeutic interventions will be justified. Certain disorders (such as acute lymphoblastic leukemia or acute myeloid leukemia) will require immediate admission and chemotherapy, while others will be followed up with regular physical examination and blood tests.
Often, surgery is attempted to remove a tumor entirely. This is only feasible when there is some degree of certainty that the tumor could be removed. Sometimes it is certain that curative surgery is impossible (parts of the malignant tumor will remain), for instance when there are metastases (nodes or elsewhere), or when the tumor has invaded a structure that cannot be operated upon without risking the patient’s life. Sporadically surgery can improve survival even if not all the malignant tumor tissue has been removed; the procedure is referred to as “debulking” (reducing the overall amount of tumor tissue). Surgery is also used for the palliative treatment of some type of cancers, such as to relieve biliary obstruction, or to relieve the problems associated with some cerebral tumors. The risks of surgery must be weighed against the benefits.
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are used as a first-line radical therapy in a number of malignancies. They are also used for adjuvant therapy, when the macroscopic tumor has already been completely removed surgically; but there is a reasonable statistical risk that it will recur. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are commonly used for palliation, where disease is clearly incurable: in this situation the aim is to improve the quality of and prolong life. Hormone manipulation is well established, particularly in the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. There is currently a rapid expansion in the use of monoclonal antibody treatments, notably for lymphoma and breast cancer.
