Cancer and Some Basics of the Main Treatment Modalities

Abstract

This chapter aims to give a summary overview of some of the clinical aspects of cancer, intended primarily for readers without a medical background. First, a short and extremely simplified description is given of cancer understood as a cellular disease or rather as a large number of cellular diseases, sharing some basic common characteristics. In the subsequent part of the chapter, an introduction to the main treatment modalities in cancer and their possibilities and limitations is given. This should give the interested reader without a medical background the necessary information for a better understanding of the later chapters, in which the published economic evaluations will be reviewed and discussed in the light of short descriptions of the most important clinical issues concerning the various cancer sites.