I. Stomach cancer is a common disease
Stomach cancer is one of the most common, most frequent and most harmful malignant tumors in human body. Globally, the incidence rate of gastric cancer is the second after lung cancer among male malignant tumors and the fourth among female malignant tumors. Stomach cancer in China ranks first among all kinds of malignant tumors, and 400,000 new patients with stomach cancer are found in China every year, accounting for 42% of the incidence in the world. The incidence rate of gastric cancer in China is high, and its mortality rate is the first among all kinds of malignant tumors.
Gastric cancer can occur at any age, but it is more common between 40 and 60 years old, and the ratio of men to women is about 2:1.
Gastric cancer can arise in any part of the stomach, mostly in the gastric sinus, especially on the side of the gastric cervix, and the development process may take many years. Gastric cancer is characterized by insidious onset, often missed in early stage due to no obvious symptoms, easy metastasis and recurrence, and poor prognosis. Therefore, gastric cancer is a common disease that seriously endangers the health of our people and should be given sufficient attention.
II. Easily ignored symptoms of gastric cancer
It is often seen in the clinic that a patient diagnosed with gastric cancer is found to be at a relatively advanced stage, but after asking about the medical history, it is found that the patient actually had symptoms a long time ago, but they were ignored by the patient. The symptoms of gastric cancer and precancerous lesions are insidious and non-specific, so it is difficult to detect early gastric cancer. In fact, only 5-10% of gastric cancers in China can be diagnosed early. The early symptoms of gastric cancer are often not obvious, such as elusive upper abdominal discomfort, vague pain, belching, acidity, loss of appetite, mild anemia and other symptoms similar to gastroduodenal ulcer or chronic gastritis. In some patients, the pain is reduced or relieved after taking painkillers, anti-ulcer drugs or diet modification, and thus is often ignored without further examination.
As the disease progresses, the symptoms of stomach gradually become obvious, such as epigastric pain, loss of appetite, emaciation, weight loss and anemia. After the formation of gastric cancer, if not detected early, cancer cells can infiltrate into surrounding tissues and spread directly, or invade into lymphatic vessels, blood vessels and natural cavities to form metastasis, generally direct invasion of adjacent organs and lymph node metastasis are common.
In the later stage, there are often metastasis, abdominal mass, enlarged left supraclavicular lymph node, black stool, ascites and severe malnutrition. The common causes of cancer tumor growth leading to the death of diseased organism are cachexia and systemic failure, followed by gastric bleeding and gastric perforation.
Third, high-risk groups should pay attention to examination
The so-called high-risk group is that they have higher risk of stomach cancer than the general population, so they should be examined in time when they have symptoms, and it is better to be examined regularly when they do not have symptoms. Nowadays, high-risk groups are definitely the following
1. Patients with precancerous lesions of stomach: the common ones are
① Chronic atrophic gastritis.
② Chronic gastric ulcer
③Gastric polyps
④Post partial gastrectomy
⑤ other precancerous lesions, such as giant gastric mucosal hypertrophy, warty gastritis, etc.
2.Patients with H. pylori infection.
3.Persons with bad dietary habits: such as irregular diet, eating moldy food, eating fast, preferring pickled and smoked food, high salt diet, and eating less fresh vegetables.
4, long-term alcohol abuse and smokers.
5.People who are mentally stimulated and love to sulk
6.People with family history of stomach cancer or esophageal cancer.
7.Some special occupations, such as those exposed to sulfuric acid dust and mist, lead, asbestos, herbicides and metal industry.