What should tumor patients who cannot have surgery or radiotherapy do?
What if the tumor is found late and the chance of surgery is lost?
What if they are too old to tolerate surgery?
What if the body is too weak to receive radiotherapy?
In China, tumor diseases are generally found late, at least half of the patients have lost the chance of surgery when the tumor is first found, and some patients, because of their age and weakness, cannot tolerate surgery and radiotherapy. What should be done for such patients? When surgery and radiotherapy are considered unsuitable after expert assessment, family members should never be confused and must find a treatment method that is suitable for tumor patients.
Surgery is the traditional method for treating tumors, which is known as radical surgery, but there are conditions for open surgery, which must be for patients in the middle or early stage. The traditional surgical method, in order to “get rid of the evil” and prevent metastasis, often widely removes the surrounding tissues, which causes great damage to patients, and even causes disfigurement and other adverse consequences when operating on head and neck and skull base tumors and breast tumors, which belongs to “heavy trauma”. In addition, the incision of open surgery is large, bleeding a lot, and the postoperative incision site is often accompanied by pain, soreness and numbness, especially the scar left behind will not only affect the aesthetics, bring negative social and psychological effects, but also some patients’ scars will be painful when it is rainy. Moreover, patients have slower recovery and longer hospitalization time after surgery, and the cost is relatively higher. For cancer patients who are not suitable for surgery, if surgery is forced, in addition to the above-mentioned drawbacks, the patient’s recovery time after surgery is elongated, and the comprehensive treatment such as chemotherapy that should be done after surgery will be postponed. Meanwhile, the more traumatic the open surgery is, the more likely the immunity will be low, and the tumor will be more likely to spread after a long time.
In addition, the commonly used methods of radiotherapy and chemotherapy are very efficient and poor in specificity. Radiotherapy not only kills tumor cells, but also causes certain damage to the normal tissues and immune system of human body, which is a double-edged sword as “the enemy does not distinguish between us”. Some doctors also think that as long as there are cancer cells, radiotherapy and chemotherapy should be administered regardless of the patient’s physical condition, and even “life does not stop, chemotherapy does not stop”, which often results in serious over-treatment.
There are many tumor treatment methods, it doesn’t matter how good or bad they are, as long as they are suitable for the patient, they are good. For patients who cannot receive surgery or radiotherapy, minimally invasive treatment combined with Chinese and Western medicine is a correct way to cure cancer, and the more commonly used ones are minimally invasive targeted therapy, intra-tumor injection of Chinese medicine, particle implantation, radiofrequency ablation, argon helium knife, thermal perfusion, etc.
Minimally invasive targeted therapy in Chinese medicine
After soaking and sterilizing the lamb intestine threads that can be absorbed by human body with anti-tumor Chinese medicine solution, the threads are implanted into the corresponding acupuncture points according to the theory of Chinese medicine meridians and combined with the lesion area to achieve the purpose of treating tumor, improving immunity and improving symptoms through continuous stimulation.
Chinese medicine preparation intra-tumor injection
Under the guidance of B-ultrasound or CT, the ablative agent of Chinese medicine is injected directly into the center of tumor to cause degeneration and necrosis of tumor cells and endothelial cells of nearby blood vessels, so as to achieve the purpose of tumor destruction. The Chinese medicinal preparations injected into the tumor include compound bitter ginseng injection, Addison’s injection, Huachansu injection and Crow’s bile emulsion.
Particle implantation
Particle implantation is to “plant” small particles with radiotherapy effect to the tumor location to continuously irradiate the tumor and destroy the cancer cells.
Radiofrequency Ablation
Under the guidance of imaging equipment, radiofrequency ablation electrodes with a diameter of about 5 mm are directly punctured to the tumor site, so that the temperature of the tumor site can instantly reach 110℃, and the tumor with a diameter of 3~5 cm can be burned alive by continuous high temperature grilling for 3~5 minutes.
Argon Helium Knife
Ar-He knife is not really a scalpel, it is called a knife only because the tumor treated by it can have the same effect as using a scalpel, it can “remove” the tumor like a scalpel. The Ar-He knife is a hollow tube with a diameter of about 2 mm. The doctor first uses CT to precisely locate the tumor, and after routine disinfection and local anesthesia, under the guidance of CT, the Ar-He knife is inserted accurately into the center of the liver cancer through a small skin incision, and then argon gas is introduced, and the temperature of the tumor lesion can drop to minus 140℃ or even minus 160℃ in about 10 seconds. “ice ball”; after about 10~15 minutes, the argon gas is turned off for 30 seconds to make the local temperature thaw naturally and slowly to 0℃, and then helium gas is then passed in, and the local temperature of the tumor lesion part gradually increases to 39℃, and then 2~3 cycles are repeated to finally freeze the tumor tissue completely.
Thermal Perfusion
Tumor is easy to metastasize, and most likely to metastasize to the thoracoabdominal cavity. After metastasizing to the thoracoabdominal cavity, the tumor in the thoracoabdominal cavity will destroy the blood vessels in the thoracoabdominal cavity, and when the blood vessels are damaged, water will flow into the thoracoabdominal cavity. At this time, patients who have lost the chance of surgery can take thermal perfusion chemotherapy, which can solve this problem very well. For thermal perfusion, a tube needs to be inserted in the chest and abdomen, which bears the drainage to the outside and the injection of chemotherapy drug at 43℃ into the inside, respectively. The heated chemotherapeutic drug does not improve the efficacy of chemotherapy, but the thoracoabdominal tumor is sensitive to temperature, especially the environment of 43℃, which can accelerate the time of self-apoptosis of tumor.