“Why it’s me?” This is the sigh of most patients when they learn that they are suffering from malignant tumor. Of course, there are many patients who can face it frankly. Among so many patients, they often have some typical and common questions about tumors. Here, Chen Yajin, Director of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery of Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University (more than 60% of the patients treated by his hands are malignant tumors) will answer them all for us in detail. Question 1: Why do I have tumor? Did I eat something wrong? The cause of tumor is very complicated and the mechanism of its occurrence is still not fully understood. However, it is certain that it is the result of the combination of the organism’s own traits and the harmful invasion of the environment. Chen Yazin said, we cannot choose the genetic quality of our body, nor can we live in a vacuum without eating the food of the world, and there must be much more unexplored carcinogens than those that have been explored. Therefore, everyone is at risk of developing tumors. As the ancient saying goes, “Eat grains, have a hundred diseases. Some tumor patients say indignantly how healthy they live and how careful they are with their diet, why they still get tumors. Question 2: Is having cancer equal to a death sentence? We can divide malignant tumors into three categories: 1) easily curable tumors, such as thyroid cancer, breast cancer, certain types of childhood leukemia, etc.; 2) early stage tumors; 3) middle and late stage tumors. Thyroid cancer and breast cancer are easily detected due to their superficial location. Many of these tumors can be cured if detected in time. Therefore, there is no need to panic, as long as they are actively treated, they can obtain better results. For early stage cancers, such as early gastric cancer, early colon cancer, even liver cancer and pancreatic cancer, which are known as the “king of cancers”, as long as they are detected early, a significant proportion of patients (more than 50%) can be cured, so it is important to have the mentality of being lucky among unfortunate to stabilize your emotion. Even in the case of mid- to late-stage tumors, there is no need to despair. Although this group of patients has less chance to get radical treatment, there are many ways to slow down the growth of tumor and improve the quality of life. At present, the World Health Organization has defined malignant tumor as a chronic disease, just like diabetes and hypertension, which cannot be completely cured, but can live with tumor and live together peacefully, treating tumor as a chronic disease and eliminating the fear. With the development of science and technology, new treatment methods will continue to appear and will provide hope for such patients. Question 3: Can you tell me how many days I have left? “How many days do I have left to live?” , “How long can I extend my life with surgery?” These are two of the most frequently asked questions by doctors, and they are also the most difficult to answer. Chen Yajin pointed out that each patient’s physical condition, tumor type and disease stage are different, and the survival period is different. Some of them are easy to judge (e.g. the expected survival period for very advanced tumors is generally 3-6 months), while others need specific analysis, especially dynamic assessment based on the response to treatment. Doctors are not fortune-tellers, even if they tell you the time, it is based on the average of a group, there are individual differences, it is important to face the reality, what treatment is suitable at this stage, take one step, see one step, do not set a deadline for yourself. Question 4: I heard that folk remedies are very spiritual and I want to try them. Due to the unpopular knowledge of science, there are still some patients who think that malignant tumors cannot be operated and will spread and metastasize once operated. They turn to seek various ancestral secret recipes and so-called “high-tech therapy”. In fact, tumor treatment is a multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment, and surgery is a very important part of the comprehensive treatment, especially for solid tumors such as liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, gastric cancer, colon cancer, etc. It is a comprehensive treatment mainly based on surgery. Most of the patients who have been cured clinically (such as liver cancer) have undergone surgery, and being able to operate means that there is a chance of cure. Therefore, when a doctor advises a patient to have surgery in a very professional manner, please do not be afraid and refuse, you may have a chance of cure or be able to delay the course of the disease. Chen Yajin said that there are countless examples of this kind of delayed disease due to refusal of surgery, and sometimes doctors can only sigh with sorrow! Recently, there was a 40-year-old female liver tumor patient who had a less than 5 cm tumor in her liver half a year ago. The doctor strongly suggested her surgery and told her that advanced laparoscopic technology would be used to remove her liver tumor with less trauma and faster recovery to dispel her fear of surgery, but she and her family still chose Chinese medicine and medication, and 9 months later, liver pain, ascites and jaundice appeared, and when she came to me again, she was When she came to me again, there was nothing she could do. For example, for liver cancer patients, hepatobiliary surgery, interventional medicine, oncology, gastroenterology, and imaging are all available, but sometimes the treatment of this specialty is not the most suitable for the patient, and it is undeniable that in some places, the treatment plan is decided by the specialty’s expertise, so that surgery is performed when it should not be, or interventional or other treatments are performed when there is a clear chance of surgery. Therefore, once a malignant tumor is diagnosed, it should be screened according to the multidisciplinary collaboration model, first of all, it should see whether hepatobiliary surgery can be surgical resection, transplantation or local ablation, and those who are not suitable for surgery should consider interventional, drug, biological immune treatment. Question 5: Why didn’t you tell me about my condition earlier? Many family members worry that the patient will not be able to cope with the condition after knowing the condition, so they hope to conceal the condition or even make a “fake medical record” to show the patient. The doctor will usually tell the patient before the surgery that a tumor needs to be operated on, so that they are not overly nervous and affect the pre-operative state, and then slowly inform the truth in the subsequent treatment after the recovery from the surgery, so that the patient is more willing to cooperate with the treatment. Chen Yazin pointed out that, legally speaking, the patient himself has the right to know and the right to choose the treatment, but unfortunately we have encountered very few family members based on some motive to conceal the disease, do not respect the patient’s own opinion, and make the wrong decision, so that the patient lost his chance to live.