When it comes to the more high incidence of malignant tumors of the digestive tract in the mainland, I think everyone will immediately think of two words: stomach cancer!
Yes, stomach cancer is a malignant tumor that originates from the epithelium of the gastric mucosa, it is the second most high-incidence gastrointestinal malignancy in mainland China, and it is also the most deadly gastrointestinal malignancy.
On average, 480,000 people with newly diagnosed stomach cancer in mainland China each year, and 370,000 patients who die of gastric cancer, the high incidence age is over 50 years old, and the incidence rate of men is significantly higher than that of women.
However, in recent years, due to changes in dietary structure, increased work pressure and Helicobacter pylori infection, stomach cancer has gradually shown a younger trend.
What is more worrying is that the symptoms of gastric cancer in the early stage are not typical, patients have no obvious symptoms, and only a small number of people have performances similar to peptic ulcers, which is difficult to attract the attention of patients.
And even if there are pain symptoms, due to the high incidence of chronic stomach disease in the mainland, many people often mistakenly think that this is just a chronic stomach disease, and then ignore the examination.
So the question is, chronic stomach disease and stomach cancer can cause pain, is there a difference between the two?
First of all, the pain caused by chronic stomach disease is more regular, take the higher incidence of stomach ulcers in the mainland, the pain is generally about 1 hour after a meal, mainly manifested as a vague pain, dull pain or burning pain in the middle right upper abdomen, lasting about 1-2 hours, after medication or the next meal, the pain will gradually reduce and disappear.
However, the pain caused by stomach cancer is not the same, the pain caused by stomach cancer is not regular, and the initial manifestation is irregular, paroxysmal epigastric discomfort, fullness after eating, and the pain in the upper abdomen will gradually worsen as the disease progresses.
Due to the specific location of stomach cancer, the area of pain is also different, such as cardia gastric base cancer is manifested as retrosternal pain, and cancer near the pylorus is manifested as pyloric obstruction. Once stomach cancer is combined with pain, even if the patient takes relevant stomach drugs and painkillers, the pain cannot be completely relieved, and the more the pain develops, the more serious the pain will be;
Secondly, the pain caused by chronic stomach disease is mainly concentrated in the stomach area, but the pain caused by stomach cancer will be affected by the compression, metastasis and infiltration of cancer, and the pain of multiple other organs or tissues.
For example, after the tumor invades the pancreatic membrane, there may be persistent pain of radiation in the lower back. If the tumor ulcer is perforated, it can cause severe pain and even peritoneal irritation signs and so on.
Finally, the symptoms of chronic stomach disease are mainly digestive aspects, such as loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, etc.
However, the manifestations of the advanced stage of gastric cancer are indeed diverse, in addition to the clear upper gastrointestinal symptoms, as the disease continues to deepen, patients can also have a number of other manifestations, such as gradual emaciation, progressive fatigue and fatigue, decreased appetite, progressive dysphagia, gastrointestinal bleeding, lymphadenopathy and so on.
Therefore, the pain caused by stomach cancer and the pain caused by chronic stomach disease are still easy to distinguish, generally when stomach cancer pain, often the disease has entered the middle and advanced stage, at this time the patient has already combined a number of physical abnormalities.
However, after all, the early symptoms of stomach cancer are not typical, so it is also necessary to conduct regular gastric cancer screening for people with a family history of stomach cancer, a history of chronic stomach disease, and people over 50 years old who are at high risk of stomach cancer.