Hematology-Oncology

Hematology, also known as Haematology, is a medical subspecialty which deals with the study of prognosis, diagnosis, cause, prevention and treatment of the diseases and conditions (like Hemophilia, blood clots, blood cancers) related to blood and its components, such as blood cells, haemoglobin, blood proteins, bone marrow, platelets, blood vessels, spleen, and the mechanism of coagulation. The physician who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment and/or prevention of blood diseases is called hematologist and those who work in hematology laboratory are called hematopathologists. Whereas, Oncology is a branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of all the types of cancer and specialist is known as the oncologist.

There are over 200 different types of cancer such as prostate cancer, melanoma cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer and many more. Blood cancer is also one of them. It includes conditions such as Hodgkins and non-Hodgkins lymphomas, leukemias and multiple myelomas. The subspecialty of Hematology, overlapped with the medical oncology deals with such conditions. This branch of internal medicine is known as Hematology-Oncology and the physicians who specialize in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of blood diseases and cancers are known as Hematologist-Oncologist. They do not usually treat operable cancers but rather focuses on blood cancer.

Types of Blood Cancers:

• Lymphoma: It is a cancer of the lymphatic system (a part of the immune system), Occurs when the abnormal lymphocytes or White Blood Cells start diving rapidly and spread throughout the lymphatic system. It often begins with the lymph nodes and can arise from any part of the body. They are of mainly two types - Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

• Leukemia: It is a cancer of the white blood cells. It is the most common type of blood cancer, originates from the abnormally rapid growth of the WBCs in the bone marrow. It destroys normal blood cells and so, the person becomes prone to infection. It is named according to the type of WBC which is affected and whether it is acute (faster growing) or chronic (slower growing).

• Myeloma: also known as multiple myelomas, is a cancer of plasma cells (Antibody-producing cells that fight against infection and disease. It occurs when the abnormal plasma cells, or myeloma cells, multiplies rapidly in the bone marrow and form tumors in the bones which prevent the bone marrow from producing normal or healthy blood cells. For the single plasma cell tumor, the condition is called isolated plasmacytoma. When two or more tumors exist, it is termed as multiple myeloma.