Da Zhuang is 38 years old this year, people as its name, strong and strong, although smoking and drinking late at night have all kinds of problems, but it seems that immunity is better than others, colds rarely occur, therefore, Da Zhuang does not pay much attention to daily physical examination.
However, since October, Da Zhuang has felt that his body is getting weaker and weaker, his appetite has dropped badly, his face is very poor, and he has lost a lot of weight, but he does not know what the reason is. Thinking that he had not had a physical examination in 4 or 5 years, Da Zhuang decided to go to the hospital for a full body examination.
Three days later, the physical examination report came out, and the test results showed that the alpha-fetoprotein in the strong body was as high as 800 μg/L, which had exceeded the normal value, while the liver B ultrasound found that there were multiple solid places in the liver, and the inferior vena cava showed echoes such as intra-segment. Da Zhuang returned to the hospital with the report for consultation, and the doctor conducted an in-depth examination for him, and finally diagnosed him with advanced liver cancer and needed to be hospitalized immediately.
Da Zhuang was frightened, he did not understand, he was not sick and painless, that is, there was a slight discomfort in the past two months, how could he suddenly be checked for cancer? Doesn't that mean cancer has a signal? How did you drag it out until it was so late?
First, liver cancer develops rapidly, and early detection is the key
For the diagnosis and treatment of liver cancer, it is still more headache, because there is no pain nerve inside the liver, so even if it is "injured", it will not "cry pain"; coupled with the relatively large volume, even if the tumor grows inside, the patient will not have obvious discomfort in the early stage. When the tumor volume becomes larger, the patient has a feeling, but often has missed the best treatment, may be in the middle and advanced stages, then the prognosis is relatively poor.
In this regard, Han Feng, director and chief physician of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery of Henan Provincial Cancer Hospital, said: "The overall five-year survival rate of liver cancer in China is only about 20%, while abroad is about 40%, the main reason for this gap is the low early diagnosis rate in China, if patients can be found in the stage where the tumor is less than 3 cm in diameter, more than 70% of liver cancer after radical treatment can be clinically cured." ”
In order to achieve "early detection", in addition to understanding the typical symptoms of liver cancer and finding abnormalities in time, it is particularly important to pay attention to physical examination and regular screening.
Second, early or painless, these tests to help
Some patients also have some abnormal discomfort in the body after the development of liver cancer, such as:
1. Pain in the liver area
Liver cancer is a representative manifestation, some patients are therefore feeling that it is not right to go to the hospital for examination and be diagnosed, mainly due to tumor growth to a certain degree of compression or tumor necrosis irritation of the liver envelope caused, mostly for persistent dull pain, tingling or swelling pain.
2. The skin and sclera become yellow
When the liver is "injured", its function will also become worse, so that the internal and external bile ducts are blocked, the bile is not excreted smoothly, and the bilirubin content in the blood will rise, causing the skin to be yellow, the sclera is yellow, and the urine is dark yellow.
3. Red moles on the skin
If there are suddenly small red dots on the front chest, back, hands and feet, etc., and there is a divergent blood capillary, it is likely to be spider nevi, which is also a major signal of liver cancer.
4. Persistent fever
Mainly based on low-grade fever, the general anti-fever treatment is not effective, because this is cancerous fever, mainly due to tumor tissue necrosis, the release of heat sources caused.
But more often, the early stage of liver cancer may not be painful or itchy, it is difficult to be detected, so it is recommended that regardless of whether you have the above symptoms, you can add these tests to the physical examination to help you screen for liver cancer.
Alpha-fetoprotein
This is a screening program that is more common in screening for liver cancer, and during the development of liver cancer, along with liver repair and hepatocyte regeneration, alpha-fetoprotein can be produced and secreted, which increases serum AFP. However, it should be reminded that elevated alpha-fetoprotein is not necessarily liver cancer, but may also be acute and chronic hepatitis, germ cell tumors (such as testicular cancer), digestive system tumors (such as gastric cancer), and the use of some drugs that stimulate liver cell regeneration can also have elevated AFP.
Usually, the alpha-fetoprotein value > 500 ng/ml, and the time lasts for > 4 weeks, it is necessary to combine localization tests, such as B ultrasound and CT for further diagnosis
Liver B ultrasound
Through ultrasound examination, it can be judged whether the patient has hepatic ascites or cirrhosis, and can also play a screening role in early liver cancer, and can also play a good examination effect in cholecystitis and liver abscess. Generally speaking, the doctor will judge whether there is a problem with the liver of the examinee based on the echo. If the echo is uniform and the size is similar, then the liver is relatively healthy; and if the liver echo is thickened, or the echo is not uniform, the liver may have lesions, and further enhancement CT is needed to determine the severity of the disease.
Enhanced CT
Enhanced CT and enhanced MRI can diagnose liver cancer correctly up to 98%, and through early detection of liver cancer, the radical cure rate of tumors with a diameter of less than 2 cm can reach 80% to 90%.
In addition, it is reminded that there is no liver cancer ≠ normal liver function. Many people in the judgment of liver cancer, directly use liver function to judge whether the liver is healthy, but the fact is that chronic hepatitis patients may have developed until the advanced stage of liver cancer without obvious symptoms, liver function is also normal, so if you want to exclude liver cancer, it is recommended to add the above three tests to the physical examination is more accurate.
Third, remind: the bad habits you don't care about are actually very hurtful
In view of the high harm of liver cancer and the high difficulty of diagnosis and treatment, it is recommended that we still focus on prevention, avoid these bad habits that will hurt the liver, and protect our liver.
1. Alcoholism
After alcohol enters the human body, the liver is responsible for catabolism, and the intermediate product acetaldehyde, has a certain degree of liver toxicity, when the concentration of acetaldehyde exceeds the liver's metabolic detoxification ability of acetaldehyde, it will lead to the accumulation of metabolites in the liver, poisoning liver cells, long-term so, easy to cause alcoholic fatty liver, and even cirrhosis, liver cancer. Therefore, it is recommended that you stay away from alcohol, if you must drink, remember to control your intake, and take low alcohol as the preferred choice.
2. Stay up late
The damage of staying up late to the liver is multifaceted, the most direct is that the blood supply of the internal organs will become less when staying up late, which is easy to make the liver ischemic and hypoxic, damage to liver cells, and at the same time reduce immune function, and then induce hepatitis; in addition, staying up late will also affect the endocrine, causing lipid metabolism disorders, causing obesity, fatty liver; and if these problems are not solved in time, it will increase the risk of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
3. High-fat diet
The liver is also responsible for transporting fat, and if every meal is a high-fat food with big fish and big meat, the liver will be too busy, and the fat cannot be metabolized into sugar in time, but as a "stock", it is backlogged in the liver cells, destroying the liver, and causing fatty liver for a long time. Therefore, it is recommended that you also pay a little attention to the diet, try to achieve a balanced diet, and try to be as light as possible on the basis of sufficient nutrition.
4, often angry
Chinese medicine has a saying that "great anger hurts the liver". If you often can't control your temper, it is easy to appear liver qi depression, so that blood flow stagnation, affecting the regeneration of liver cells and liver compensatory capacity, and then there are some disease symptoms, especially some people who originally have liver disease, it is easier to aggravate the disease, laying hidden dangers for the occurrence of liver cancer.
5. Drug abuse
Many drugs are metabolized by the liver, if the abuse of some drugs, such as antipyretic analgesics, anti-anxiety, anti-tuberculosis, antibiotics and other drugs, it is easy to increase the burden on the liver, so that it is damaged, drug-induced liver damage, creating conditions for the occurrence of liver cancer. Therefore, taking any medication, especially for long-term users, it is recommended to follow the doctor's advice and conduct regular liver function screening so that problems can be solved in time.
6. Hepatitis cannot be treated for a long time
Chronic viral hepatitis and chronic alcoholic hepatitis are high-risk triggers for liver cancer, with 10% to 30% of patients with chronic hepatitis B develop cirrhosis after at least 5-10 years, and 5-10% of cirrhosis turn into liver cancer after at least 5-10 years. Therefore, it is recommended that patients with chronic hepatitis must not be careless, and need to actively treat and control hepatitis to avoid its continued development.
In addition to the people with the above bad habits, people with a family history of liver cancer, people with a history of hepatitis B disease, and eating foods contaminated with aflatoxin should also pay attention to protecting the liver and screening regularly.
Summary: Liver protection is life protection, because the liver does not have pain nerves, so even if the lesion will not "cry pain", it is easier to be ignored, which in turn has led to liver cancer so "rampant". Therefore, in order to prevent liver cancer, it is recommended that everyone pay attention to staying away from the habit of injuring the liver, and regularly screen, find problems, seek medical treatment in time, and protect our liver.
Resources:
[1] "The King of Cancer "No Pain, No Itch" Can Be Detected for 90% for Dozens of Dollars". Henan Daily.2021-02-02
[2] Is it true that love is angry and hurts the liver? 》. Beijing Daily.2021-03-03
[3] Is "Staying up late and hurting the liver" true? Here's a full interpretation of the text". Central Committee of the Communist Youth League.2021-08-28
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