It is often said that the way to deal with cancer is early detection and early treatment.
So the question is, what exactly is considered “early”?
Early stage of cancer?
It is true that early cancer has a high cure rate, but it can and should be earlier.
(Image source: Internet)
Medically, cancer is classified into precancerous lesions, carcinoma in situ and invasive cancer.
Early/late stage of cancer is well known, but precancerous lesions are less talked about. In fact, in the war with cancer, taking out precancerous lesions is the key to win!
Pre-cancerous lesions are certain benign lesions with cancer potential.
At this time, the cell form has changed to a certain extent, but it has not yet turned into cancer cells. If we actively rescue the “lost cells”, they may turn back into healthy cells and say goodbye to cancer.
However, if left unattended or if the “lost cell” is too stubborn and does not change, it will eventually become a cancerous cell.
It usually takes more than 10 years for precancerous lesions to develop into cancer, and during these 10 years, as long as it is detected early, it can be destroyed.
Take gastric cancer as an example, many gastroenterological diseases may be the “precancerous lesions” of gastric cancer.
1
Chronic atrophic gastritis
At present, the pathway of chronic gastritis to gastric cancer is “HP infection → chronic superficial gastritis → atrophic gastritis → intestinal hyperplasia or atypical hyperplasia → gastric cancer”.
Patients with atrophic gastritis usually have discomfort such as burning pain, distension and dull pain in the stomach, which is due to the thinning of certain cells in the stomach due to atrophy and the increase of acidity and bacteria in the stomach, and finally develop into gastric cancer.
2
Stomach polyp
Gastric polyp is the growth of excess tissue in the stomach, which is mainly a protruding papillary tissue of the gastric mucosa cells after long-term inflammation and stimulation.
Stomach polyps are mainly divided into hyperplastic gastric polyps and adenomatous gastric polyps, of which the latter has a much higher chance of cancer than the former, regardless of whether the polyps are benign or malignant, once they occur, they are best removed through surgery as soon as possible.
3
Gastric ulcers
Most patients with gastric ulcer have chronic gastritis, which also provides conditions for the occurrence of gastric cancer. When the gastric mucosal cells around the gastric ulcer are constantly stimulated, they will regenerate themselves, and this process of repeated destruction and repair will make the regenerated cells have the possibility of cancerous transformation.
4
Stomach remnants
Because the surgery for benign gastric lesions requires removal of the gastric sinus and part of the gastric body, i.e., the remnant stomach, firstly, the pylorus of the stomach will lose its contraction function, which will cause reflux gastritis due to duodenal reflux.
Secondly, it will affect the secretion of gastrin, causing abnormal disorders in the nutrition of the mucosal epithelium as well as the barrier.
Finally, it leads to a decrease in gastric acid secretion and promotes the growth of harmful nitrate reductase-positive bacteria, and a large number of nitrosamines are synthesized in the residual stomach to induce gastric cancer.
The chance of precancerous lesions transforming into cancer varies.
In addition to the above gastric precancerous lesions, common precancerous lesions include mucosal leukoplakia, chronic cervicitis, fibrocystic mastopathy, colonic polyposis, chronic cholecystitis combined with cholelithiasis, nodular cirrhosis, chronic skin ulcers, epithelial atypical hyperplasia in bronchial mucosa, etc.
The cancer rate of oral leukoplakia is low, around 7%-15%, and the possibility of colon multiple polyp cancer is higher. Information shows that 80%-95% of colorectal cancer evolves from adenomatous polyps.
However, in front of cancer, even if there is only 0.01% possibility, it should be killed in the cradle.
First of all, we do not have perspective eyes, and it is impossible to detect precancerous lesions through naked eyes; secondly, it may be too late to go to the hospital when we are not feeling well, and cancer cells may have already “burned and killed” in our body.
The general population should undergo early cancer screening once a year, while the high-risk group (those with family history of malignant tumor and genetic susceptibility, those with chronic inflammation, those with clinically diagnosed precancerous diseases, and those with high risk of occupation or region) are recommended to undergo 2-4 cancer screenings.
Cancer screening sounds very “high class”, but it is actually very easy to do this test.
