Mr. Guan was diagnosed with bowel cancer 5 years ago in his home hospital because of “recurrent blood in stool with abdominal pain”, and after surgery, he had several courses of chemotherapy and Chinese medicine treatment, and his condition was well controlled for nearly a year, and he entered the follow-up stage. However, he did not listen to the doctor’s advice to follow up once every six months to a year. It was not until a few days ago when he started to cough repeatedly and took a lot of medicine, but the effect was still not good, he had a chest X-ray and found a lung mass, suspecting that it was “lung cancer”, then he came to the oncology department of the hospital accompanied by his wife to prepare for further treatment. He came to the oncology department of the hospital accompanied by his wife to prepare for further treatment. “Should we do surgery and chemotherapy, will it be as hard as chemotherapy 5 years ago?” When Mrs. Guan asked this question, the doctor realized that Mr. Guan had undergone surgery and chemotherapy 5 years ago, and asked for his previous medical records, examination results and especially pathology reports. “I think the disease are well, those medical records information is not much use, right, and ‘ominous’ things, I threw it away ……,” said Mr. Guan. The doctor told them: in fact, those information for further treatment has a great reference value, they went back to the previous surgery in the old home to do chemotherapy hospital to re-copy the information, back and forth tossed most of the month. Reminder: Patients should not conceal their medical history to bring all medical records Some tumor patients may doubt the accuracy of the examination in the local hospital or for other reasons, and throw away the examination data or discharge summary once they are discharged from the hospital, and are unable to provide the previous diagnosis and treatment data to the doctor. “Some examination data in the process of diagnosis and treatment of tumor are very precious, and patients must keep them properly.” Lin Lizhu combined with years of clinical observation to remind that tumor patients are different from general patients, often need to receive a relatively long-term standardized treatment, and many of them also tend to have received treatment from multiple hospitals. Therefore, it is better to briefly describe the past situation to the doctor during each visit, such as what treatment plan has been used, what drugs have been taken, how many cycles have been treated, whether there is any evaluation after treatment, and how effective it is, etc. Never hide the medical history. Because subsequent treatment is often based on previous treatment, it is difficult for the doctor to give an appropriate treatment plan if he or she does not know the patient’s previous treatment history. However, since the patient is not a professional, it is often difficult to explain the diagnosis and treatment of the disease more accurately, so the past medical records, examination results and other information are precious. Lin Lizhu suggested that tumor patients should try to bring the following four aspects of information with them to facilitate doctors to check, summarize and formulate treatment plans, and also save time and money for themselves– 1. 2. pathological information, such as pathology report, section, etc., and preferably biomarker (gene test) test report, such as EGFR and ALK gene test for lung cancer, KRAS gene test report for intestinal cancer, etc. This kind of information is very important because pathological diagnosis is the gold standard to determine the tumor disease suffered by the patient; 3. Other examination reports, such as blood routine, heart and lung function, liver and kidney function, etc., can help to evaluate the overall organ function of the patient and determine the treatment plan. Suggestion: Respect the specialist’s opinion and choose the treatment plan rationally “Doctor, is he in advanced stage of cancer? We shouldn’t treat it if it’s late!” “Isn’t chemotherapy very hard? We don’t want chemotherapy anymore!” Clinically, many patients or family members often express various opinions and demands on treatment while asking doctors, and even resist and doubt different views of doctors. “After all, it is yourself or your loved ones who are sick, and this anxiety is understandable. But most of them are not doctors, and even if they are doctors, they may not be oncologists, and the vast majority of them do not know much about tumor staging treatment and the latest technological advances.” Lin Lizhu explained that, for example, for early stage breast cancer, doctors will recommend surgical excision and then decide whether adjuvant treatment is needed based on post-operative pathology. And for patients with locally advanced or locally progressive stages, such as stage III tumors with concurrent mediastinal lymph node metastases, if handled well and receive simultaneous chemoradiotherapy, patients can achieve a healed treatment outcome similar to surgery. For patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, radiotherapy is the preferred treatment option and can even achieve cure. Therefore, treatment should be centered on radiotherapy, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, synchronous chemoradiotherapy and postoperative chemotherapy. Patients and family members should rationally cooperate with doctors and make preliminary plans according to patients’ main symptoms, examination results and treatment progress, and choose the most suitable plan among them by combining with their own economic conditions, acceptance level and treatment willingness. Words you know: why should I bring pathology report? “Despite the rapid development of imaging, until now, the gold standard for the diagnosis of tumor diseases is still pathology results.” Lin Lizhu pointed out that some people go for radiography because they are not feeling well, or they find a shadow in a certain part of their body by chance physical examination. However, from imaging alone, it is impossible to clearly determine whether it is a tumor, tuberculosis or inflammation, and whether it is benign or malignant. This is when the pathological diagnosis result is important. There are various ways to obtain pathological results, such as obtaining pathological specimens by surgical resection, or by bronchoscopy, gastroscopy, nasopharyngoscopy biopsy or ultrasound, CT-guided puncture for pathology, and possibly lymph node excision biopsy, or sputum examination. Non-invasive tests (e.g. sputum examination) are usually recommended to be done first, and invasive tests are considered second. For patients with diagnosed tumor, Lin Lizhu reminded that it is important to bring previous pathology reports to help doctors understand the patient’s past medical history, avoid repeated examinations, and save time and cost for medical consultation. For cases with less clear diagnosis or doubts, try to borrow sections from the hospital pathology department for pathology consultation if necessary.