Colorectal cancer is the most common malignant tumor of the gastrointestinal tract occurring in the large intestine. In recent years, the incidence of colorectal cancer has been on the rise worldwide, and radical surgery for colorectal cancer is also a routine operation in our department. If colorectal cancer is found late, the 5-year survival rate is only about 40-50% even after radical resection, while the survival rate of early colorectal cancer is over 90%, so the prevention and early diagnosis of colorectal cancer are very crucial. Current research has determined that the development of colorectal cancer is related to our diet. The following dietary carcinogenic factors have been identified: Duan Shaobin, Department of Surgery, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine
(1) The incidence of colon cancer is directly proportional to the consumption of fat and animal protein in food, i.e. high animal protein and high fat diets are likely to lead to colon cancer.
(2) The high incidence of colon cancer in economically developed areas is mainly related to their dietary structure, where people’s diets are too high in protein and fat, and their diets are too fine, with insufficient intake of fiber due to too little intake of vegetables. This is mainly because the fat and its decomposition products in food may have carcinogenic or synergistic carcinogenic effects. Too little fiber in food may reduce the amount of stool and prolong the time of stool passing through the intestine, so that the concentration of carcinogens in stool will increase and the contact time with colonic mucosa will be prolonged, and cancer may occur when carcinogens are in long-term contact with colonic mucosa.
Therefore, we can prevent the occurrence of colon cancer from the following two aspects.
(1) We should pay attention to eat more vegetables and fruits containing more fiber, such as spinach, rape, cabbage, celery, fruits, etc., in order to keep the bowel flowing smoothly and reduce the contact time between carcinogens in feces and colonic mucosa.
(2) Reduce the intake of fat and animal protein in food, which can reduce the production of carcinogens and carcinogenic effects of their decomposition products, so as to reduce the incidence of colon cancer.
The second thing is to actively prevent and treat intestinal diseases. If you have chronic ulcerative colitis, schistosomiasis, chronic dysentery, etc. (these diseases have symptoms of diarrhea and abdominal pain), you should actively treat them and have regular colonoscopy to determine whether the chronic inflammation of the intestine has healed or whether other changes have occurred.
Then it is important to treat colon polyps aggressively. A polyp is a growth on the intestinal wall that protrudes into the lumen of the intestine. There are adenomatous polyps, inflammatory polyps, misshapen polyps, etc. Adenomatous polyps are precancerous lesions of the colon, so when adenomatous polyps are found in the colon, they should be treated to remove the adenomas and pathological examination, hopefully at the benign adenoma stage to be removed to prevent colorectal cancer. If not treated early, most of them will become colorectal cancer and the prognosis is poor.
However, polyps in the colon are almost asymptomatic, and colon cancer is almost asymptomatic in the early stage, so many patients refuse colonoscopy when they are examined, and when they come to the hospital with symptoms, most of them are already in the middle or late stage. Therefore, for people at high risk of colon cancer, such as people over 40 years old, if they have familial intestinal polyp disease (the disease is a genetic disease, the intestines of family members will be full of polyps, with a tendency to cancer), chronic ulcerative colitis, chronic schistosomiasis, family history of colon cancer or long-term diarrhea and stool habit changes, colonoscopy should be performed regularly. Even for normal people over 40 years old, colonoscopy once every 3-5 years is necessary.
There is a strange phenomenon in our country that most people like to take medicine for treatment but not for examination, they think that examination is a waste of money especially when the result is negative. In fact, examination is the most important thing, examination can find the problem and its truth, more conducive to treatment, and is there a problem especially in the early stages of the problem can only be found and excluded by examination.
Nowadays, every unit often gives physical examination to employees, but gastroscopy and colonoscopy are never done, while it happens that stomach cancer and intestinal cancer are the most common malignant tumors, and these tumors can only be detected by gastroscopy and colonoscopy in the early stage. The good results of bowel cancer treatment in developed countries in Europe and America are due to the wide acceptance of colonoscopy.
More examinations can be done (of course, invasive examinations should be done with caution), but treatment, especially medication, should be done sparingly.