Back pain after Covid-19, when going to the doctor, cancer “eats” into the spine

April 14, 2022 14:29 GMT+7

In the case of Ms. Nguyen Thi Len (from Phu Tho province) after contracting Covid-19, she often felt short of breath, short of breath, and coughed. She was taken to Bach Mai Hospital by her children. After asking about the disease and examining it, the patient was given diagnostic tests and imaging tests.

The results showed that the patient had mild bilateral fibrous lung lesions, and observed on the film, there was an image of a faint nodule in the right upper lobe with the size of 1 x 1.5 cm.

The patient was conducted other in-depth explorations, and concluded: T1bN0M0 adenocarcinoma lung cancer (stage IA according to TNM8) has a mutation in the EGFR gene.

The patient was then transferred to the Oncology department for early treatment. With lung cancer at this stage, the prognosis is usually good, with a 5-year survival rate of over 70%, even many patients can be completely cured. Mrs. Len was fortunate to go to the doctor early and detect cancer at an early stage.

In fact, many patients are recorded at a very late stage because they are afraid to go to the doctor for fear of Covid-19.

Oncology and Nuclear Medicine Center, Bach Mai Hospital received a case of metastatic breast cancer. From June last year, the patient had palpable mammary glands and was diagnosed with fibroids.

After that, the patient did not go back to the doctor for fear of Covid-19. Increasingly, the tumor is getting bigger and more solid. In February 2022, the new patient came to Bach Mai Hospital for examination. At this time, the doctor diagnosed breast cancer as stage IV.

Picture of a lung bubble because of metastasis due to cancer in another organ.

Doctor Ho Hoang Phuong – Tam Anh General Hospital shared that after the Covid-19 epidemic, the number of patients who came for health check-ups had all kinds of diseases from liver, kidney, colon cancer… At times, Doctor Phuong Tu Interviewing both cases, coincidentally the same, both are women over 50 years old, have a mother with lung cancer in the family, are relatives of medical professionals, so they have regular health check-ups.

However, due to the epidemic, for more than a year, I could not go to a doctor because I was afraid, then I received 3 doses of the vaccine and was infected with Covid-19 but had mild symptoms.

After Covid-19, the patient coughed, lost weight again, and a local chest X-ray showed a problem. The patient went to the Imaging Center, Tam Anh Hospital for further chest CT examination, both of them were diagnosed with lung cancer, the same upper lobe, and the same right side.

Doctor Phuong said this is unfortunate and not only the post-Covid-19 symptoms cause people’s health to decline, but the most worrying thing is the consequences of Covid-19 that slow people down for regular health check-ups. By the time the disease was detected, the tumor was too big, the disease was at a late stage.

According to Dr. Phan Xuan Trung – Hoa Hao Medical Clinic, Ho Chi Minh City, at this clinic, the number of patients going for medical examination increased dramatically. This may be because the facilities have removed the requirement to test for Covid-19 before entering the clinic.

But when receiving the results of periodic health checks, they are all from mild to severe disease. Dr. Trung said that due to not being examined periodically during the epidemic, many cases of the disease incubated from mild to severe. The most common are diabetes and cancer.

With diabetes, patients buy their own oral medication without checking the sugar index, so there is no dose adjustment. High sugar damages small blood vessels in the heart, brain, kidneys, and eyes.

Cancer cases often come at a late stage. Dr. Trung said that there was a very young case, after Covid-19 he felt back pain, so he went for an X-ray and CT examination and found that the lung tumor had eaten into the spine.

There was a case where a patient went for screening because he saw a cough after Covid-19, taking a film to see a picture of a balloon in the lung, indicating metastasis to the lung from other organs such as the liver and pancreas.

For these patients, if they go to the doctor early, they will definitely be diagnosed early, treated early, have a higher chance of survival, and less expensive treatment when the disease has reached the metastatic stage as it is now.

The doctor said that the scariest post-Covid-19 symptoms are that the patient does not go to the doctor, causing chronic diseases to develop, and cancer is not detected early.

Khanh Chi