Is gastroscopy painful?
The first thing some patients say after an examination when the gastroscope is pulled out of their mouth is: “I’d rather die than have a gastroscopy. Is gastroscopy really that painful? General gastroscopy, indeed uncomfortable, mainly the discomfort in the throat, is a not very good experience, this discomfort mainly comes from the stimulation of the gastroscope in the throat caused by the feeling of nausea, this feeling, sometimes difficult to endure, this is the main reason why most people refuse gastroscopy, right. Painless gastroscopy is indeed much more comfortable than regular gastroscopy, and the examination is completed without any sensation at all.
A “painless” gastroscopy is actually a short-acting sedative anesthetic drug injected into the vein of a patient who is about to undergo a gastroscopy by a professional anesthesiologist, allowing the patient to undergo a gastroscopy or simple minimally invasive treatment while sleeping. When the examination or treatment is completed, the patient awakens without feeling a thing and with no memory of the uncomfortable experience.
Can anyone undergo a “painless” gastroscopy?
Not everyone can undergo such an examination. Before undergoing a painless gastroscopy, the anesthesiologist must know the basic physical condition of the person being examined, such as whether he or she has high blood pressure, heart disease, or serious lung disease, and so on, to rule out these underlying diseases before undergoing a painless gastroscopy. After the painless gastroscopy, the doctor will give the patient a time to resume eating and drinking (usually 2 hours after the examination). Please do not work at height, do not engage in precision calculations, do not drive, including motorcycles, electric cars and bicycles within 24 hours after the painless gastroscopy.
Gastroscopy is the best way to detect early gastric cancer China is the country with high incidence of gastric cancer in the world, more than half of the new gastric cancers in the world are in China, which is comparable to Japan and Korea, while the death rate of gastric cancer is significantly higher than Japan and Korea. Compared with Japan and Korea, our rate of early gastric cancer is very low, which is greatly related to the examination and treatment of early digestive tract cancer that Japan and Korea, especially Japan, have been paying attention to in the past 20 to 30 years, and the detection rate of early digestive tract cancer in Japan is over 70%, while in China, there are statistics that it is only 15%! Japan and Korea also belong to the countries with high incidence of stomach cancer, but their early detection rate is very high, which makes the cure rate much higher, mainly because of the popularity of gastroscopy in Japan and Korea.
Of course, the acceptance of gastroscopy in these two countries is also very high, and they will take the initiative to undergo gastroscopy at a certain age, especially those who have a family history of stomach cancer. Some data show that China spends billions of RMB on research and medical treatment on one item of gastric cancer, but only prolongs the survival of advanced gastric cancer patients by half a year! Generally speaking, all kinds of tumors, including gastric cancer, mostly occur in middle-aged and elderly people, and there are no specific symptoms in the early stage of any kind of tumors.
Advantages of Gastroscopy
The advantage of gastroscopy is that gastroscopy can enter the body directly, just like entering a room to visit, and it can observe the most minute changes of the gastric mucosa. It can observe the smallest changes in the gastric mucosa. It is not as intuitive as a person standing outside a room and observing the room through a glass window. Compared with CT and color ultrasound, which we are familiar with, the ability to diagnose the mucosa of these cavernous organs of the stomach and intestines is limited.
CT can only see the mass on CT after the tumor has developed to the middle or late stage, formed a larger mass or formed lymph node metastasis. Early gastric lesions are generally the most frequent and first to occur in the gastric mucosa, so gastroscopy is the examination is currently the preferred means of diagnosis of gastric diseases.
With the development of treatment technology, gastroscopy has become more than just an examination tool. Scientists and doctors have developed various more advanced gastroscopic diagnostic and treatment devices, such as pigmented endoscopy, NBI (narrow band imaging technology), AFI (autoinjection technology), FICE (intelligent spectroscopy), ISACN (high-definition intelligent electronic staining), and the magnification developed on the basis of the above technologies. Endoscopy has even made early cancer nowhere to be seen.
What is gastroscopy about?
We have talked about the advantages of gastroscopy, but how does gastroscopy work? What information can be observed? Here’s how it works: Gastroscopy is performed with the help of a thin, soft tube into the stomach, which is not ordinary.
This high-definition camera, under the control of the doctor, provides detailed observation from all angles inside the stomach and takes pictures of various areas, especially abnormal mucosal changes. The doctor can observe the suspected lesion site from multiple angles, combined with staining, and conditional units can have a magnifying endoscope, which can be magnified to more than 100 times to observe the subtle changes in the mucosa of the stomach, which is equivalent to a low-power microscope looking for any suspicious traces in the stomach, and can also use special equipment for pathological biopsy and cytological examination with the help of a special tube of the gastroscope, and biopsy tissue under the microscope The biopsy tissue can be diagnosed pathologically under microscope, and most of the “stomach diseases” can be diagnosed clearly in one time.
People who are at high risk of stomach cancer need gastroscopy more than the general population.
About the high-risk groups, they usually refer to
1. People with family history of tumor. Among two or three generations of relatives who have had digestive system tumors or other tumors, their chances of getting stomach cancer will be higher.
2.People who have chronic gastric diseases such as gastric ulcer, chronic atrophic gastritis, chronic gastritis, Helicobacter pylori infection, etc. People with these diseases should be treated actively to prevent disease progression and go to hospitals for regular review.
3, long-term smoking, drinking alcohol, especially love to eat hot food, pickled and barbecued food, high salt food and other bad habits, these habits can cause more serious damage to the stomach, should be timely adjustment of lifestyle habits, and should not refuse the doctor’s gastroscopy recommendations.
Therefore, it is recommended that people over 45-50 years old should have a gastroscopy and no positive findings or no high-risk factors for 3-5 years can generally be reviewed; people who have had gastroscopy and found to have chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal epithelial hyperplasia or heterogeneous hyperplasia and other risk factors for gastric cancer should combine with doctors’ recommendations for regular review and follow-up, so that once early lesions are found, timely and correct treatment can avoid tragedies. There will always be people who find gastroscopy unpleasant, but compared to the regret brought by avoidance, so don’t hesitate when it’s time to have a gastroscopy!