If a man is not even afraid of death, it seems that nothing can crush him! But is this really the case? wrong!
In China, among the nearly 4.5 million cancer patients newly diagnosed each year, there are people who are on the road to suicide because of cancer. Patients have the idea of wanting to commit suicide, not because of huge medical expenses, but because in the process of cancer development, there is a torturous and unbearable symptom, which is called in the clinic: cancer pain, referred to as cancer pain!
One of the main causes of cancer pain is that there are about 7 million cancer patients in the mainland, and 1/4 of them already have pain when they first seek medical examination.
In pain patients, due to various reasons, 50 to 80% of cancer pain has not been effectively controlled. Even a few hours before the patient dies, the cancer pain persists. So the question is, how does cancer pain occur, and how to treat it?
Cancer pain, as the name suggests, is a series of pains induced by the appearance of cancer. According to the current clinical data, the causes of cancer pain can be divided into three types:
1. Pain directly caused by tumors
This pain accounts for about 88% of all cancer pain patients, and its appearance is mainly related to tumor invasion. For example, cancer cells infiltrate the pleura, peritoneum, bone and other areas, or the cancer continues to grow and compress the nerves and surrounding tissues, and the swelling causes the surrounding tissues to stick and infect, and there will be pain.
The key mention here is bone metastasis, bone pain induced by bone metastasis, which is often difficult for patients to bear, and the effect of ordinary analgesic drugs is very small;
2. Treatment of pain
Cancer can also be treated with pain, such as open wounds after surgery, nerve damage, incision scars, and phantom limb pain.
In addition, in the process of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, patients may have various side effects, such as neuritis caused by radiotherapy, stomatitis, dermatitis, bone necrosis and so on. After chemotherapy, patients may develop shingles, tissue necrosis, embolic phlebitis, toxic peripheral neuritis, etc., all of which will produce pain;
3. Indirect pain
The so-called indirect pain refers to the patient's low immune function caused by cancer, long-term bedridden, in this case, the patient may have local infections, pressure sores and other problems, and then induce pain.
Usually, the treatment of cancer pain needs to be carried out in many ways, and there are several clinical options:
1. Treatment of cancer
As mentioned above, the vast majority of patients have cancer pain, which is related to the cancer itself. Therefore, the treatment of cancer can alleviate cancer pain, such as radiation therapy can alleviate bone pain caused by bone metastasis, chemotherapy can reduce the volume of tumor analgesia, surgical treatment can remove tumor pain, etc.;
2. Drug therapy
For the drug treatment of cancer pain, WHO has introduced a three-step analgesic method, the first step is to give non-Zi anti-inflammatory drugs plus or minus auxiliary painkillers for mild pain.
The second step, for moderate cancer pain, will be given weak opioids and non-zi anti-inflammatory drugs to assist in pain relief. The third step is mainly for patients with severe pain, and strong pull tablets are given for pain relief.
Through the above treatment methods, the pain of most cancer patients can be relieved or removed. In the clinical point of view, the treatment of cancer pain is actually one of the key points of cancer treatment, to the middle and advanced stages of cancer, has long been changed from the purpose of clinical cure to as far as possible to prolong the survival of patients, improve the quality of life of patients, so patients do not need to be overly pessimistic, and actively cooperate with doctors to treat, is the most important.