How to determine the recurrence of cervical cancer

  If cervical cancer recurs after surgery or radiotherapy, most recurrences occur within 3 years. After recurrence of cervical cancer, most of them die within 1-2 years if they are not treated. Recurrence of cervical cancer is most common in the pelvic wall, parametrium and local recurrence of the cervix. Distant metastasis is mostly seen in supraclavicular lymph nodes and lung metastasis.  The main manifestations of cervical cancer recurrence vary according to the site of cancer recurrence. For local or vaginal recurrence of cervical cancer, irregular vaginal bleeding or foul-smelling leucorrhea often occurs; for pelvic wall or parametrial recurrence, pain and swelling of the affected lower limbs, pain in the lumbosacral area or lower abdomen, and pelvic examination can touch the parametrial mass or fixed mass in the sacral fossa; for rectal or bladder metastasis, blood in the stool or hematuria often occurs; for bone metastasis, local pain often occurs; for lung metastasis, cough and chest pain can occur. Supraclavicular lymph node metastasis may include enlarged and hard lymph nodes. When the above symptoms and signs appear after cervical cancer treatment, the possibility of recurrence should be considered. For local recurrence of cervical and vaginal cancer, it is not difficult to confirm the diagnosis by cytological examination of vaginal smear and biopsy. However, recurrence in the parametrium and pelvic wall is more difficult to be diagnosed mainly by clinical symptoms and pelvic examination. Attention should be paid to differentiate pelvic masses from post-radical surgery lymphatic cysts, pelvic wall inflammatory masses, and post-radiotherapy parametrial connective tissue fibrosis. B-mode ultrasound, CT, PET-CT/pelvic examinations, etc. have certain reference value for the diagnosis of recurrent metastatic cancer.  In the actual review, patients with squamous cell carcinoma also do a tumor index SCC (squamous cell carcinoma antigen), if it is continuously elevated, we should be careful, which often means recurrence or metastasis. However, this index is often interfered by inflammation, so if you have a cough and cold just before the review, it is better to wait for the disease to improve before the review, so as not to interfere with the test results.