Short answers, pulled from the story.
Oncology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer. An oncologist typically specializes in a particular area such as surgery, radiation, medical therapy, or an organ-specific discipline like breast, brain, or liver oncology.
Cancer was first documented around 3000 BCE in Egypt. The Edwin Smith papyrus described a form of cancer as a bulging tumor of the breast, making it one of the earliest known medical descriptions of the disease.
The word oncology derives from the Greek term onkos, meaning tumor. The physician Galen, who lived from 130 to 200 CE, was the first to use onkos in this medical sense, giving rise to both the words oncologist and oncology.
The four main divisions are clinical oncology, which combines systemic therapies and radiation; medical oncology, which covers chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and hormonal therapy; radiation oncology, focused on radiation treatment; and surgical oncology, focused on surgical removal of tumors.
Debulking is a surgical procedure used when a tumor cannot be fully removed, such as when metastases are present or the tumor has invaded a structure too risky to operate on completely. The goal is to reduce the overall volume of tumor tissue even without achieving total removal.
Established monoclonal antibody therapies in oncology include Rituximab, used for lymphoma, and Trastuzumab, used for HER2-positive breast cancer. Newer agents targeting a range of other cancers are also in use alongside these.