Is radiotherapy really necessary for advanced cancer?
The National Office of Cancer Control recently released the Annual Report on Cancer Statistics in China, which shows that there are 3.5 million new cancer cases and 2.5 million deaths due to cancer in China every year. Cancer has ranked among the top causes of death in urban and rural areas.
In terms of the cure rate of cancer, it has reached 65% in developed countries, but only about 25% in China, and many of the poor treatment results are related to the irregular treatment. Zhao Baiqiu, general surgery department of Shanghai Deji Hospital, was treated as a cold for more than two months Ms. Yang is a patient who has just been detected with advanced lung cancer. However, before the diagnosis was confirmed, Ms. Yang was treated as a cold for more than two months in the emergency departments of two hospitals due to symptoms such as fever and cough.
However, after a month of taking medicine, Ms. Yang’s cough did not improve, and blood appeared in her sputum. Ms. Yang went into the hospital for the second time.
More than two months later, Ms. Yang’s condition had not abated at all, so she went to the hospital for the third time, this time to the internal medicine clinic, and the doctor asked her to have a chest CT.
After diagnosis, Ms. Yang was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Since she missed the best time for surgery, Ms. Yang can only take conservative treatment and take medicine to maintain her condition.
Experts analyze that the reason why Ms. Yang was misdiagnosed is related to the special nature of lung cancer, as well as the experience and professional limitation of the doctors who saw her before.
Due to the limitation of cancer screening system, many cancers cannot be detected in time, and if the patient goes to hospital after symptoms appear, if the patient receives treatment from the wrong department, the treatment deviation will easily occur.
The characteristic of cancer is that it comes fiercely and develops fiercely. Once there is a mistake in decision making in treatment, often, as people say, “there is not even a chance to make up for it”.
Experts: Over-treatment of cancer increases patients’ pain
In cancer treatment, especially for patients with advanced cancer, families often go out of their way to ask for various means to save lives as much as possible, but experts say that many measures at this time are actually futile, not only in “over-treatment”, but also in increasing patients’ pain.
”The day after the blood transfusion, there is still no strength”.
The day after the transfusion, I still had no energy.” “After 13 times of chemotherapy, the hematocrit failed, so I really can’t do it anymore.
This is what breast cancer patient “Yawei Lily” wrote on her blog at the beginning of 2013, before her last month of life, to truly reflect her condition.
The side effects of high-dose chemotherapy and immune system decline
Mr. Chen said that for more than a year after the relapse of her condition, she had tried several expensive new drugs and new treatment methods out of her desire to live, and had also undergone 19 high-dose chemotherapy sessions. These methods caused her body’s immunity to drop dramatically due to the high side effects, resulting in cancer cells metastasizing throughout her body, liver ascites, swelling of her stomach and legs, and total organ failure, and finally falling into a coma.
After spending more than 1 million yuan on medical expenses, “Yawei Lily” passed away.
In fact, “over-treatment” like this abounds.
Doctors: “dead horse as a living horse” is very cruel experts said, for the judgment has been made, the condition is irreversible, when death is approaching, the family and society demanded some so-called “full rescue” means and measures, sometimes actually quite cruel.
According to incomplete statistics, medical expenses for end-of-life respiratory support systems in China account for more than 75 percent of all medical expenditures. The result of such efforts often only prolongs the patient’s survival for a short period of time, but it brings greater physical and mental trauma to the patient.
Over-treatment of cancer
In addition to the terminal torture, over-treatment of cancer also involves many aspects, such as removing all the surrounding normal tissues in addition to the tumor in order to pursue the curative effect; such as blindly increasing the dosage of radiotherapy and chemotherapy or extending the treatment period in order to pursue the cure rate; such as carrying out the treatment with the intention of “trying”. For example, in order to pursue the curative effect, the dose of radiotherapy and chemotherapy should be increased or the treatment period should be prolonged; for example, some new treatment techniques are carried out with the intention of “trying”, which often affect the quality of life of patients.
Many experts are also studying that, with the current medical standard, for some patients with advanced cancer, there will be no big miracle if they continue to do anti-cancer treatment, and if they switch to palliative care with pain relief as the main treatment at this time, the effect may be very different.
Call for the establishment of “single disease multidisciplinary” cancer treatment
Due to the differences in the understanding of cancer treatment, many departments have different means and produce the same effect. Some experts call for the establishment of a “single disease multidisciplinary” treatment system to further improve the standardization and application of cancer treatment and to improve the scientific and rational nature of treatment plans.
When cancer patients arrive at hospitals, they often encounter the phenomenon that they are treated by whichever department they go to first, and then transferred to other disciplines or specialized hospitals when their treatment is not effective or their condition deteriorates. Through a lot of clinical work and in-depth research on the above problems, experts of Shanghai Deji Hospital have established a clinical “single disease multidisciplinary” treatment center headed by President Song Donglei and Director Guo Hui, which regularly or single clinical departments apply for organizing multidisciplinary experts to consult patients of a certain discipline and make individualized and comprehensive treatment plans.
Tumor treatment requires comprehensive evaluation by multidisciplinary experts
Patient Ms. Yang said that if her condition had not been delayed in the emergency department, the situation might have been very different. Tumor treatment is a comprehensive medicine, involving many fields such as imaging, pathology, internal medicine, surgery, radiotherapy, etc. When a patient enters the hospital, it is often necessary to make a comprehensive assessment by multidisciplinary experts on what kind of treatment method to receive, and then give the best treatment plan.
Establish cooperation mechanism
However, because there are many patients, few doctors and heavy workload of each discipline, it is difficult to organize each discipline to carry out comprehensive diagnosis and treatment for each case. Experts call for breaking the boundaries of disciplines, establishing a good cooperation mechanism, improving the treatment norms for various tumors as soon as possible, carrying out comprehensive treatment and improving the overall level of specialized tumor treatment.
Combining high-risk factors
Targeted cancer prevention physical examination is understood that malignant carcinomas of pancreas, blood, nervous system and bone tumors are difficult to be detected early, while esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, thyroid cancer and bladder cancer may be detected early, and cervical cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer can be detected early at all.
According to experts, cancer prevention checkups must be carried out in combination with your own high-risk factors.
In addition, the general population can also choose different levels according to their different age levels. Generally speaking, young people should focus on cardiopulmonary function physical examination, while the elderly can have a low-dose CT and abdominal ultrasound, gastroscopy and so on.
In addition, pay special attention to physical abnormalities, such as a runny nose or cough with frequent blood, to consider the possibility of lung, oral, or rhinitis cancer.