If cancer is detected early and diagnosed early, most patients are cured. However, most of the patients seen in clinic are not early stage cancer. Early stage of cancer often has no special symptoms or even no disease. Therefore, patients will not take the initiative to go to the hospital for examination, and once the state is obvious, it is often too late. In fact, some symptoms and signs may be related to early stage cancer, which can be called “early signs” or “warnings”. In addition to the government’s attention and medical personnel’s screening, the early detection of cancer also depends on patients’ vigilance and learning to self-examine and self-discovery.
I. Eight warning signs
The World Health Organization (WHO) has put forward the following “eight warning signs” as reference for people to consider the early signs of cancer.
1.Palpable hard nodes or hard changes, such as those found in the breast, skin and tongue.
2.Warts (superfluous tumors) or moles with obvious changes.
3.Persistent abnormal digestion
4.Persistent hoarseness, dry cough and difficulty in swallowing.
5.Irregular menstrual period, heavy bleeding, extra menstrual bleeding.
6.Unexplained bleeding from nose, ear, bladder or intestine.
7.Wounds that do not heal, swelling that does not go away.
7.Unexplained weight loss.
II. Top ten symptoms
According to the situation in China, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences has proposed the following ten symptoms as warning signs to draw people’s attention to cancer swelling.
1.Lumps in any part of the body, such as breast, neck or abdomen, especially those that gradually increase in size.
2.Ulcers on any part of the body, such as tongue, cheek mucosa, skin, etc. without trauma, especially those that do not heal for a long time.
3.Irregular vaginal bleeding or discharge (commonly known as increased leucorrhea) in women of middle age or older.
4.Dullness, burning pain, foreign body sensation or progressive aggravation of dysphagia behind the sternum when eating.
5.A dry cough or blood in the talk that cannot be cured for a long time.
6.Long-term indigestion, progressive loss of appetite, wasting, and no clear cause is identified.
7.Change in stool habit or blood in stool.
8.Nasal congestion, epistaxis, unilateral headache or diplopia.
9.A sudden increase in size of the nevus or breakage, bleeding, or loss of the original hair.
10. Painless hematuria.
In addition to the eight warning signs and ten symptoms mentioned above, there are also the following signs that should be highly alerted.
1.Unilateral persistently aggravated headache, vomiting and visual disturbance, especially diplopia of unknown cause.
2.Tinnitus, hearing loss, retractable sputum with blood, and neck mass.
3.Unexplained oral bleeding, oropharyngeal discomfort, foreign body sensation or cavity pain.
4, Painless and persistent worsening jaundice.
5, Nipple overflow, especially bloody fluid.
6.Growing gynecomastia.
7.Unexplained fatigue, anemia and fever.
8.Unexplained generalized pain, bone and joint pain.
In addition, precancerous lesions should also be considered as early signs. For example, mucocutaneous leukoplakia, chronic skin ulcers, fistulas, proliferative scars (especially those caused by chemical burns), atrophic gastritis and intestinal epithelial hyperplasia, multiple polyps of the rectum, skin keratosis (especially keratosis of the palm of the hand at the size of the fissure, cystic lobular hyperplasia of the breast, cervical erosion, cervical polyps, etc. (see chapter “Precancerous lesions (see chapter “Precancerous lesions”) can develop into cancer.
Treat early signs correctly
It must be emphasized that neither the eight warning signs nor any of the ten symptoms are exclusive to cancer. Having one or even several of these items does not mean that the person is suffering from cancer. For example, hemosiderotic granuloma and plasmacytoid mastitis of the breast can cause lumps and skin changes that are very similar to breast cancer; chronic ulcers of the lower extremities (commonly known as rotten legs) can last for years but are not cancerous; vaginal mycobacterial infections of endometrial hyperplasia, which are common in middle-aged women, can also lead to heavy menstrual bleeding and increased leucorrhea; esophagitis and esophageal diverticula can also cause stuffiness, discomfort and burning pain behind the sternum when eating. Among the causes of blood sputum, tuberculosis seems to be more common; patients with chronic atrophic gastritis often have indigestion and loss of appetite; ulcerative colitis and intestinal polyps can also cause blood in the stool; nasal polyps and migraine can also cause unilateral nasal congestion and headache; in areas where hemosiderosis is endemic, celiac hematuria can also be caused by hemosiderosis, and so on. In short, having one or several of the above warning signs or symptoms does not necessarily mean that one has cancer. These signs and symptoms should not be taken as the basis for cancer diagnosis, and the family should not be in a panic because of one or several signs. However, the warning signs and symptoms mentioned above may be the early signs of certain cancers, and if they are taken lightly, diagnosis and treatment may be delayed.