Early gastrointestinal cancer is early cancer. In fact, with the current medical technology, early gastrointestinal cancer can be prevented, detected and treated with better results. Therefore, for cancers such as stomach cancer, early screening and early detection are crucial.
Before the body feels sick, the nourishing malignant tumor, early cancer of the digestive tract, has already started to evade the monitoring of immune cells by one cancer cell, and “split in two” and divide for several years, and then secretly and slowly ” growth” for several years.
Early cancer of GI tract usually does not cause discomfort, and most of the patients are discovered “indirectly” when they go to hospital for gastroscopy because of other gastrointestinal diseases. This has a lot to do with the lack of screening concept, including many general medical workers (many of them have fallen down due to late stage cancer).
As a result, the early diagnosis and treatment rate of gastrointestinal cancer in China lags far behind that of developed countries, and the life expectancy in China also lags behind that of developed countries.
Among the developed countries in the world, the incidence rate of gastric cancer in Japan and Korea is similar to that of China, but they, especially the early screening and diagnosis rate of cancer in Japan, is much higher than that of China because they have carried out gastroscopy screening for the elderly.
At present, the detection of early cancer basically relies on the fine examination of gastroscopy, which is different from the ordinary examination and must have strict preparation before examination, such as making the stomach cleaner by taking mucolytic and antifoaming agents for a clearer view during examination; reducing gastric peristalsis by injecting antispasmodic agents to facilitate microscopic observation.
If suspicious lesions are found, magnified endoscopy can be performed, which can be magnified up to 100 times to accurately locate the early stage of cancer. More importantly, an experienced endoscopist is needed to perform a comfortable and painless examination through sedation or intravenous anesthesia to find out the true location of cancerous lesions.
Treating early cancer is treating the disease before it happens
However, prevention is more important than cure. If we can prevent the occurrence of cancer, it is of course the best policy.
Japan proposes to eliminate stomach cancer within 50 years, another important strategy is to eliminate H. pylori in the stomach among young people.
Studies in Japan as well as Taiwan have found that drug eradication of H. pylori can reduce the incidence of gastric cancer by 30% to 50%.
H. pylori is transmitted through mouth and fecal mouth, such as sharing a meal with each other when the dishes lead to the crossover of saliva, which can also transmit H. pylori.
In developed countries, it is customary to share meals, which eliminates the spread of H. pylori in public places and greatly reduces the infection rate.
As an ancient civilization, our nationals can also follow Western hygienic eating habits to prevent H. pylori infection, which has been proven to prevent most duodenal ulcers, gastric ulcers and gastritis and improve quality of life, and medical doctors and scientists in Japan, Korea and Taiwan tell us that it is likely to also prevent stomach cancer.
Be aware of early cancers of the digestive tract – bowel cancer
Bowel cancer incidence rate ranks second in Shanghai, Guangzhou and other mega cities for malignant tumors, and one of the main reasons here is the prevalence of western meat-based diet structure in our cities.
In the past two years, Shanghai government learned the experience of bowel cancer prevention in western developed countries, and 340,000 people were found to be at high risk of colorectal cancer after free screening for 1.78 million people, of which only 94,000 people (27%) received colonoscopy, and a total of 2,100 cases of colorectal cancer were detected, with the early cancer rate at about 40%, and more than 10,000 cases of colorectal polyps were also detected, 60% of which were precancerous diseases.
In February this year, Guangzhou began free screening for bowel cancer for people aged 50-74. Nearly 90,000 Guangzhou residents participated in the screening, and only 2,592 of the 18,457 people with positive initial screening (only 14%) underwent colonoscopy, which revealed that 1,196 people, 46.14%, had abnormalities, 40 of which were malignant tumors, and most of the others were precancerous and early cancers.
We see that there is still a majority of people who do not receive colonoscopy and there is a need to update the concept of health, because the facts speak for themselves and these have been proven by a large number of practices as an effective policy and technique to prevent cancer of the digestive tract.
There are multiple factors in the occurrence of cancer
Studies have found that a good lifestyle can reduce the incidence of GI tract tumors.
For example, the incidence of gastric cancer also decreases a lot after several generations of Easterners immigrating to the West, suggesting that the genetic influence of gastric cancer is low and mainly associated with pickled foods and H. pylori infection, and that Westerners therefore have a low incidence of gastric cancer. Bowel cancer is closely related to environmental factors, especially dietary factors.
With the increasing intake of fine foods, animal fats and proteins, the intake of vegetables, fruits and other plant foods is relatively reduced; coupled with irregular diet, reduced exercise, smoking, drinking and other bad habits, the body is unable to absorb enough dietary fiber, and toxic substances accumulate in the intestine for a long time, which leads to the occurrence of cancer.
Dietary fiber can enhance intestinal peristalsis, shorten the time of food passage, reduce the chance of harmful substances in food damaging intestinal mucosa, and also adsorb and take away some harmful substances.