Patients have access to comprehensive care including surgery, medical oncology, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy – all from your Texas Oncology care team.
Medical Oncology
Medical oncology focuses on diagnosing your breast cancer, developing your treatment plan, and coordinating your overall care.
Your medical oncologist on your breast cancer treatment team is responsible for:
- Managing your breast cancer treatment plan and therapies
- Monitoring and evaluating your progress
- Collaborating with other medical professionals to determine your treatment options
- Consulting with you about your treatment choices and treatment side effects you may experience
- Providing medical guidance to help you make informed decisions
- Connecting you and your family to support services that meet your educational, emotional, and financial needs during treatment
Advanced practice providers may work with your medical oncologist to assist in providing your breast cancer care.
Surgery
Nearly all women with breast cancer will undergo some kind of surgery as part of their treatment and/or diagnosis. The extent of surgery for breast cancer may range from removal of only a small piece of breast tissue to removing one or both breasts, including underarm (axillary) lymph nodes. The purpose of surgery in the management of breast cancer is to:
- Obtain a tissue sample for determining an accurate diagnosis.
- Determine the stage of the cancer and whether additional treatment is necessary.
- Treat the cancer locally
As a Texas Oncology patient, you have access to leading
surgical specialists. If your cancer treatment plan calls for surgical procedures, you will have the advantage of your medical oncologist and radiation oncologist working closely with your
surgical specialist. This teamwork brings you multiple opinions and coordinated treatment for your total well-being.
Radiation Therapy
The objective of radiation therapy to the breast is to kill cancer cells that could otherwise persist after therapy and cause breast cancer to relapse locally in the breast, surrounding chest wall, or axilla. Radiation therapy uses high energy X-rays to kill cancer cells that remain in the breast or surrounding lymph nodes after surgery. Radiation therapy is almost always utilized as part of the overall breast-conserving strategy because radiation decreases the risk of local cancer recurrence and improves survival.
The Paxman Scalp Cooling System
This is a simple treatment that can help prevent chemotherapy-induced hair loss. The cooling cap reduces the temperature of the scalp a few degrees immediately before, during, and after the administration of chemotherapy, reducing the blood flow to the hair follicles to prevent chemotherapy from damaging them. Patients undergo scalp cooling each time they have a chemotherapy infusion. The average cooling time is two and a half hours, including 30 minutes of pre-infusion cooling, cooling during infusion, and 90 minutes of post-infusion cooling.
Chemotherapy
Your medical oncologist may recommend chemotherapy as part of your breast cancer treatment plan. Chemotherapy is a group of medicines used to treat cancer. While
surgery and
radiation therapy target specific areas of the body, chemotherapy works systemically (throughout the body). Chemotherapy can also destroy cancer cells that have metastasized to parts of the body away from the original tumor site.
There are many variables to chemotherapy:
- More than 100 different drugs are used in chemotherapy
- You may receive a single drug or a combination of drugs. Depending on your combination of drugs, your chemotherapy treatment session may last a few minutes to a few hours.
- You may receive chemotherapy as an injection, a pill, or an IV infusion.
Chemotherapy is administered by nursing professionals under the direction of your medical oncologist. Our pharmacists and nurses are highly trained in the preparation and management of chemotherapy–related drugs.
Gynecologic Oncology
Gynecologic oncology focuses on treating pelvis and female reproductive cancers, including ovarian, cervical, endometrial, vulvar, and vaginal cancers.
Our gynecologic oncologists provide thorough evaluations and treatment plans for cancers and precancerous lesions. We also evaluate women at high risk for gynecologic cancers because of their personal and family history. If you need surgery, we use minimally invasive, laparoscopic, or robotic techniques whenever possible.
We work closely with your primary care physicians to provide you the best care possible from diagnosis through survivorship.
Colon & Rectal Surgery
Colon and rectal specialists diagnose and treat benign and malignant conditions of the colon, rectum, and anus. The board-certified physicians of Texas Colon & Rectal Specialists, a part of Texas Oncology, focus on surgical and non-surgical management of colon and rectal cancer and conditions. With several physicians and numerous locations across Houston, our specialty physicians combine their expertise and high quality of care to deliver strong patient outcomes, consistently exceeding national benchmarks.