Guangzhou Daily – Nov. 1, 2011 – B8: Daily Health Care Edition Text/Reporter Lai Heng Correspondent Dai Lijuan Medical Director/Dr. Chen Yuanguang, M.D., Deputy Chief Physician, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University ● Epidemiological surveys show that the incidence of gastric cancer is originally more in men than in women, but in the age group younger than 40, the incidence of gastric cancer in women exceeds that of men in the Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University Chen Yuanguang ● H. pylori infection is an important cause of gastric cancer, and high salt intake is also closely related to the development of gastric cancer ● Gastric cancer does not have very typical characteristics, so many patients treat gastric cancer as a common gastric disease, and it is already at an advanced stage when discovered Tingting, 27 years old this year, never thought that the stomach pain and bloating that had been bothering her would end up in a paper diagnosis of gastric cancer. The news was like a bolt from the blue and shook Ting’s whole family. Tingting was the pearl of her family and had just returned from her doctoral studies abroad to work in a foreign company with a bright future. However, what awaits her now is a cruel stomach removal operation. During the interview, the reporter found that the gastrointestinal surgery departments of many hospitals in Guangzhou have admitted young female patients with gastric cancer in recent years. “This trend has attracted the attention of many colleagues in the medical field.” Chen Yuanguang, deputy chief physician of gastrointestinal surgery of Guangzhou First Hospital, told reporters. From a national perspective, in the disease survey statistics of recent years, the incidence of gastric cancer in both men and women has increased, but the increase in the incidence of gastric cancer in young women, especially professional women, is more significant, and it is clinically more common in low-differentiated cancer with poor prognosis. In this regard, experts point out that the reasons for this phenomenon are not yet completely clear, but it is estimated to be related to lifestyle, work pressure and other factors. A few years ago, the death of Yuan Xiaojuan, the editorial director of a fashion and food magazine in Beijing, from stomach cancer caused a ripple in the society. The reason why Yuan Xiaojuan’s death attracted attention was firstly because she was young, only 34 years old at the time of the disease. Secondly, she reflected deeply on her life on her blog after she was diagnosed with cancer, which resonated with countless netizens. Before she fell ill, she was a strong woman who “did the work of three people by herself”. With her heavy workload and perfect personality, she left herself with only four or five hours of sleep a day. Likewise, for the sake of work, she never “treats her stomach well”. Diet is extremely irregular, hungry a full meal, and often do not eat breakfast. As a result, the stomach became the weakest organ in the body. According to Chen Yuanguang, there are differences in the incidence of stomach cancer by age, gender and race. As the age increases, the incidence rate also increases. Generally speaking, gastric cancer reaches its peak at the age of 50-70, and then declines rapidly, and cases below 30 years old are extremely rare. However, according to the results of interviews with many hospitals in Guangzhou, stomach cancer under the age of 30 is not a new thing nowadays, and several cases can be encountered almost every year. Besides that, stomach cancer is originally more popular among men, and data shows that the incidence rate of men is about twice that of women. However, it is noteworthy that the incidence of stomach cancer among women exceeds that of men in the age group of less than 40 years old. Analysis – high work pressure, lunch or young women’s stomach cancer triggers Chen Yuanguang introduced that stomach cancer, like other cancers, is the result of the synergy of multiple factors, among which, Helicobacter pylori infection is one of the important reasons for the development of stomach cancer. Another point to note is that high salt intake is also closely related to gastric cancer. Therefore, if H. pylori infection can be detected early in daily physical examination and treated in time, it is the best way to prevent gastric cancer. “In fact, nowadays, you only need to go to the gastroenterology department of a hospital to do a blood draw or blow test, and you can quickly diagnose whether H. pylori infection has occurred.” So, what makes stomach cancer “see” young women? Professor Ji Jiafu, dean of Peking University’s School of Clinical Oncology, has analyzed that it is estimated to be related to lifestyle, work pressure and other factors. He pointed out that the food industry in the United States has clear rules: food should not be kept at room temperature for more than 4 hours, and the maximum time for food kept under refrigeration is only 6 hours. But at present, many women white-collar workers in the city like to bring meals at noon, and these meals are stored for much longer than the above-mentioned standard; because of busy work, they are often too lazy to cook or cook one meal to eat several meals, and the dinner time is not fixed, and they work under too much pressure and often work overtime …… these are possible causes of stomach cancer. In addition, smoking, drinking, skipping breakfast, staying up late for a long time, as well as some young women’s obsession with weight loss, hunger and satiety are also triggers of stomach cancer. Reminder—Symptoms are not typical, early detection depends on gastroscopy Chen Yuanguang pointed out that the clinical symptoms of early gastric cancer patients are often very atypical and easy to be confused with other gastric diseases, thus increasing the difficulty of early gastric cancer detection. Early gastric cancer patients usually only have some symptoms such as mild indigestion, such as hidden pain in the upper abdomen, slight fullness, pain, nausea, belching, etc. These symptoms are not unique to gastric cancer, but can be seen in chronic gastritis, ulcer disease, functional dyspepsia, and even normal people occasionally. Therefore, many people, especially young people with busy work schedules, can easily ignore these symptoms. Because of this, 70% to 80% of people who visit the clinic for gastric cancer are diagnosed with progressive gastric cancer, which is often referred to as “advanced cancer”, while the detection rate of early gastric cancer is only 15%. “Because there are no typical symptoms of early gastric cancer, the most effective method for early detection is gastroscopy.” Chen Yuanguang said that because the onset of early gastric cancer is not significant, CT and other examination methods have no practical significance for the screening of early gastric cancer. Even when observed under gastroscopy, early gastric cancer only shows as a very small spot, which will only become more obvious after staining. “So sometimes in some primary hospitals, if the doctors are not experienced enough, they may also let go of the traces of early gastric cancer.” Chen Yuanguang suggested that patients should better go to a specialist hospital or oncology specialist of a general hospital for screening. Chen Yuanguang pointed out that the clinical value of early detection of gastric cancer is very high because the five-year survival rate of early gastric cancer is over 90%, and some patients can even have their tumor lesions removed through gastroscopy without surgery. In fact, the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning gastroscopy is “pain”, and because of the fear of pain, many people are reluctant to undergo gastroscopy even if they have stomach pain for years. In fact, many hospitals have introduced painless gastroscopy or electronic capsule gastroscopy and other examination methods, even the elderly do not need to suffer too much pain.