Currently, esophageal cancer is ranked as the ninth most malignant disease in the world, and about 300,000 people die from esophageal cancer worldwide every year. China is also one of the regions with high incidence of esophageal cancer in the world, especially in the border areas of Henan, Hebei and Shanxi provinces in the southern section of Taihang Mountains.
Why is the geographical incidence of this cancer so obvious? It turns out that it is closely related to living habits and regional environmental characteristics. For example, people with the custom of eating too hard or too hot food and eating too fast will have a high incidence of esophageal cancer; smoking and heavy drinking can also increase the incidence of esophageal cancer by 8 times and 50 times respectively; imbalance of trace elements and vitamin content in regional diet will also lead to higher incidence.
In addition, genetic susceptibility factor is also an important aspect that cannot be ignored, and some esophageal cancer patients show obvious characteristics of family inheritance.
Why Esophageal Cancer is Scary
The horror of esophageal cancer lies in the fact that it does not have any obvious feeling at the early stage of its development, but only feels uncomfortable when swallowing coarse and hard food, and occasionally has pins and needles-like or pulling pain in the chest, and the symptoms are intermittent and progress slowly, so if people do not pay attention to it, it will not attract attention at all.
In this way, most patients have already reached the middle and late stage of tumor development when diagnosed, which makes treatment significantly more difficult and brings huge challenges to surgery, and the prognosis is very poor (unsatisfactory treatment effect).
How to Screen Early
Instead of sitting on the sidelines, it is better to take the initiative. In fact, early detection of esophageal cancer is not a hopeless case, and many patients can be cured if timely detected and treated as early as possible.
1.Eating discomfort
The main symptom of esophageal cancer is progressive difficulty in swallowing. If you always feel that food cannot go down when swallowing (stagnant feeling) or there is something stuck in your throat (foreign body feeling), which can be relieved or disappeared after swallowing saliva, you should be careful.
2. Chest pain
Chest pain is not a typical symptom of esophageal cancer, but the chest pain caused by it has its own characteristics, which can be expressed as burning, pinching and pulling pain behind the sternum, and it is most obvious when swallowing food, especially rough, burning and other irritating food.
3. Dryness and tightness of the pharynx
This is due to the mucosal tissue and muscle tissue of the test tube is stimulated and formed.
4.Frequent choking and coughing
Under normal circumstances, the pharynx plays the role of a “diverter” on the train tracks. When the body inhales, the esophagus is closed and the trachea is opened to let the gas enter the lungs; when eating, the opposite is true to let the food enter the stomach for digestion and absorption. When the esophageal cancer tissue obstructs the passage of food, the accumulated food cannot enter the stomach and becomes a “foreign body” to enter the lungs, causing choking and coughing.
When the symptoms of eating discomfort and chest pain start to persist, and even hoarseness and unequal size of eyes appear, it means that the esophageal cancer tissue has developed into the middle and late stage, infiltrating and compressing the surrounding nerves and other normal tissues.
It is especially important to note that when the inflammatory edema caused by cancer obstruction temporarily subsides or part of the cancer tumor falls off with the friction of food, the symptoms are often reduced, so do not let down your guard at this time and mistakenly think that the condition is getting better by itself.
How to prevent esophageal cancer
Since esophageal cancer is closely related to living habits and geographical factors, how should it be prevented?
1.Maintain correct eating habits, do not drink too hot water and porridge, do not eat too hard food, grasp meal time and avoid eating too fast.
2, do not drink raw water, improve the quality of drinking water; avoid excessive consumption of regional characteristics of pickled and smoked vegetables, beans and meat, to avoid the intake of nitrosamines, mycotoxins.
3.Actively treat esophageal diseases and promptly deal with precancerous lesions, such as esophagitis, esophageal polyps, esophageal diverticula, etc.
4.Quit smoking and limit alcohol, rectify bad habits.
5.Actively and regularly participate in screening and physical examination, such as esophagoscopy and ultrasound endoscopy, which can be used for early diagnosis, early intervention and treatment.