Digestive disorders, bloating, weight loss, beware of liver cancer
Thought digestive disorders caused liver cancer
Recently, Mr. Tran TH (45 years old, Lao Cai) was like lightning when the doctors announced that he had stage 3 liver cancer.
He said suffering: “I often drink alcohol, so my digestive system is also messed up. 6-7 months ago, I often had abdominal pain, digestive disorders, anorexia, so I just thought my digestive system had problems. I just took a few pain relievers to pass.
My skin is quite dark so no one can tell if I have jaundice or not. Only when the weight loss became more severe and the stomach pain was unbearable, I went to the doctor and the doctors told me that I had stage 3 cancer. At this stage, the treatment is also very difficult.”
Many people ignore the early signs of liver cancer such as abdominal pain, loss of appetite… (Image: Pixabay)
Dr. Pham Tuan Anh, Deputy Head of the Department of Inquiry Treatment (Central K Hospital), said that liver cancer is the cancer with the highest mortality rate today because most patients are diagnosed with the disease when they have been diagnosed with cancer. in late stage.
According to Dr. Tuan Anh, liver cancer is difficult to detect early because there are no specific symptoms and people’s habits and perceptions often do not go for screening. Therefore, in Vietnam, most patients come for examination and detect when liver cancer is at a late stage, leading to very expensive but less effective treatment.
If detected at an early stage, treatment is much simpler and more effective.
“Most of the early symptoms of liver cancer are ignored because it’s just a normal response of the body. In the early stages of liver cancer, the patient may experience symptoms of loss of appetite; pain, heaviness in the right lower quadrant; abdominal distention, jaundice, sclera of the eyes, …
When the cancer cells have spread to a certain extent, new abnormal features become more obvious such as fatigue, gastrointestinal disturbances, loss of appetite, abdominal distention, dark urine, jaundice, weight loss, etc. clearly the reason …”, Dr. Tuan Anh shared.
What causes an increased risk of liver cancer?
According to Dr. Tuan Anh, in Vietnam, the rate of hepatitis B infection is very high, this is the leading factor and cause of liver cancer. The rate of hepatitis B infection in our country is up to 15-20% of the population.
Hepatitis virus infection is one of the risk factors for liver cancer. Photo of BVCC
The second factor that increases the incidence of this disease is that many people have a habit of using alcohol regularly. In addition, certain factors can increase the risk of the disease such as gender (more common in men than women), people with chronic liver disease (cirrhosis), fatty liver.
“However, certain factors can increase the risk of the disease such as gender (more common in men than women), people with chronic liver disease (cirrhosis), fatty liver, hepatitis B , hepatitis C, obesity, aflatoxin contamination by molds….
In addition, the cause of liver cancer may be related to environmental factors, diet, abuse of alcohol, tobacco, etc.” obesity, aflatoxin contamination by molds…. is also evaluated as one of the risks that increase the incidence of liver cancer”, emphasized Dr. Tuan Anh.
How is liver cancer treated?
Dr. Tuan Anh said, periodic liver cancer screening is one of the ways to detect the disease early, even when there are no symptoms.
When the disease is detected early, the treatment effect is very good, in case the tumor resides at an early stage, surgery can be completely resolved and the patient can live for many years without recurrence. , there are patients with stable treatment of 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 years and can be assessed as cured.
Vietnam currently has the latest achievements in the treatment of liver cancer, if the countries around the world have new application methods, Vietnam can also do it.
For example, the latest achievement in early liver cancer treatment is liver resection or liver transplant in Vietnam.
“For the intermediate stage, using local measures such as radiofrequency ablation or using heat to destroy the tumor, microwave therapy, chemotherapy embolization …
Signs of liver cancer you must not ignore. Photo BCCC
In addition, for the metastatic stage when local interventions cannot be used, drugs to treat invasive disease, target drugs or, most recently, immunotherapy have also been shown to prolong the patient’s life. at a late stage,” added Dr. Tuan Anh.
How to prevent liver cancer?
Dr. Tuan Anh shared, in order to reduce the morbidity and mortality from this disease, it is necessary to do well prevention, prevention means eliminating risk factors for liver cancer.
First is the vaccination program to prevent hepatitis B and C infection, then also to limit alcohol use, there are laws to limit alcohol consumption; maintain a healthy lifestyle, eat healthy, maintain a reasonable weight.
Moreover, it is necessary to propagate to raise people’s awareness about the implementation of early cancer screening screening, so that people have the habit of going to regular health check-ups, early detection, people at high risk such as: often use alcohol, work in a dusty environment, …
“The earliest clinical symptoms of liver cancer are often atypical. So if, for 2 weeks in a row, you feel pain in your liver, fever, weight loss, and other symptoms above, go for it. should go to a hospital or a reputable specialist facility for a timely check-up.
The early diagnosis and detection of liver cancer in particular and other diseases in general will make the treatment more effective, the possibility of cure is higher, and also reduce the cost of treatment.”
Dr. Pham Tuan Anh
at Blogtuan.info – Source: danviet.vn – Read the original article here
