Persistent stomach pain actually leads to total gastric resection, how to screen early in the face of "fast-progressing" stomach cancer?

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The 23-year-old girl Xiaozuo is usually busy at work, stressful, stomach pain lasts for two weeks and has not been taken seriously, until not long ago after the meal appeared hematemesis symptoms before panicking, after medical treatment was diagnosed as the advanced stage of gastric cancer. Due to the large lesion, Xiaozuo requires total gastric resection, and the possibility of cancer recurrence and metastasis in the future is high. How did you get stomach cancer at a young age? Why is progressing so fast?

"Diet, environment, bacterial infections, genetics and other factors are all related to the occurrence of stomach cancer." Gao Zhidong, deputy chief physician of the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery of Peking University People's Hospital, introduced that the speed of gastric cancer progression is related to its biological type, which is also gastric cancer, including high differentiation, medium differentiation, low differentiation, etc. The lower the degree of differentiation, the faster the progression.

Gao Zhidong said that although people's health awareness has improved, 50%-60% of gastric cancer patients are still found to be in the middle and advanced stages, and these patients have poor relative treatment effects and short survival, thus giving people the impression that stomach cancer is "progressing fast".

"The stomach is the largest cavity organ in the human body, in the early stage of tumor, the symptoms are similar to chronic gastritis, the symptoms are mild, often do not affect work and life, it is easy to be ignored, until the stomach lesions are enough to affect the physiological functions such as eating, the tumor is already larger." Gao Zhidong explained.

Zhao Lin, associate professor of oncology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said that the more effective way to improve the prevention and treatment of gastric cancer lies in early prevention and early diagnosis, "Gastrointestinal contrast, a traditional noninvasive method, generally speaking, can not find particularly early gastric cancer, early gastric cancer mainly needs to pass gastroscopic screening." ”

In addition to the environmental impact of life, genetics is also an important factor. Zhao Lin reminded that people with a clear family history of gastric cancer should start to pay attention to gastric cancer screening earlier than the general population, "Some countries will be 50 years old as the initial screening age, if there is a clear genetic family history, it is best to start screening before the age of illness of sick relatives." ”

Some people found precancerous lesions such as atrophic stomach cancer during the physical examination, because the report had the word "cancer", which caused them great panic. In this regard, Zhao Lin stressed that precancerous lesions are not cancer, but the risk of turning into cancer in the future is relatively high, and it must be paid attention to.

"Patients with chronic atrophic gastritis are advised to undergo regular gastroscopy, which allows for more timely detection of early cancerous changes. Changing bad lifestyles and eating styles, such as quitting smoking, avoiding alcohol, and minimizing a high-salt diet, is another possible approach. Zhao Lin also reminded that the World Health Organization has listed Helicobacter pylori infection as the first causative factor of stomach cancer, and if found, it should be removed in time to avoid future malignancy.

Beijing News reporter Zhang Zhaohui

Proofread by Zhao Lin