China is a country with a high incidence of stomach cancer, with more than half of all new stomach cancers worldwide in China, and the facts tell us that most people go to the doctor only when they are uncomfortable. Both diseases that occur in the stomach, gastric ulcer and gastric cancer, can cause symptoms of stomach pain, but the nature of the disease is really worlds apart. The early stages of stomach cancer can have no symptoms or some very insignificant symptoms, similar to common digestive diseases, which may only include loss of appetite and abdominal discomfort. These symptoms are easily confused with gastric diseases such as gastritis and gastric ulcer, so people may not think that early gastric cancer may also have similar symptoms. So how to distinguish the symptoms of gastric ulcer and gastric cancer? What are the possible symptoms of stomach cancer? 1. Short-term unexplained weight loss and loss of appetite The symptoms of gastric cancer may include obvious weight loss because the tumor keeps competing with the human body for nutrition during the growth process, and the patient’s weight is obviously reduced. In contrast, general gastric attack like gastric ulcer has no long-term effect on appetite, physical strength and weight. Patients with early gastric cancer have no desire to eat, obvious anorexia performance, or fullness and belching after eating, and aversion to meat are more common symptoms of gastric cancer. 2.Bleeding and positive stool occult blood test Stomach cancer can have the symptom of bleeding in the early stage, and in the late stage, the bleeding amount of stomach cancer patients will become very large. Individuals may have coffee-colored or dull red blood mixed with vomit. A small amount of upper gastrointestinal bleeding can be detected by gastroscopy or fecal occult blood test. There are also many patients who found positive occult blood test in routine physical examination and traced the bleeding to stomach, thus early detection of gastric cancer. This also reflects one of the significance of fecal occult blood test in routine physical examination. 3.No history of gastric disease, persistent abdominal discomfort or pain These discomfort symptoms include stuffy stomach, loss of appetite, indigestion, accompanied by pantothenia, and most of them have no causative factors, and the effect of oral medication is not good, or it is good and bad, and the symptoms are characterized by progressive aggravation. Common gastric diseases often have obvious triggers before the onset, such as people who often drink alcohol, eat cold food, drink cold drinks, smoke for a long time, especially love to eat hot food, pickled and barbecued food, high salt food and other bad habits. If there is no obvious cause for stomach discomfort, the possibility of stomach cancer should be excluded. 4. Regularity and change of pain nature of “old stomach disease” There are many patients with stomach cancer who used to be patients of various “old stomach diseases”, and because they had symptoms of upper abdominal pain many times in the past, they thought that old stomach disease was always like this, so they just let it hurt and did not go to hospital for examination or pay attention to it. This is one of the reasons why they are paralyzed. However, it should be noted that if the nature and pattern of the original stomach pain has changed, you need to pay attention to it: for example, the original pain every time you eat and sleep at night does not hurt, if there is a sudden change in the pain habits and pattern of the pain even at night when you sleep continuously. Therefore, if the nature and regularity of epigastric pain have changed in the near future in patients with long-term stomach problems (especially in male patients around 40-50 years old), and if there is no significant improvement after 2-3 months of regular treatment, they should be alerted and should go to the hospital for relevant examination as soon as possible. The above are only clinical patterns and are only somewhat predictive. Because of the variable nature of the disease, they are not diagnostic and ultimately require gastroscopy and pathological testing of biopsy tissue to confirm the diagnosis. These symptoms are not specific. If you have these manifestations, you should think of the possibility of cancer, but do not put them in the right place, as some manifestations are not equal to cancer. It is important to correctly understand the non-necessary relationship between symptoms and disease diagnosis. Having symptoms is a reminder to pay high attention, and the final definite diagnosis needs further examination for clarification.