In the past, liver cancer was known as the “king of cancers”, but in recent years, with the improvement of detection and treatment technology, the survival time of liver cancer patients has been greatly extended, and the title of “king of cancers” has changed. However, in recent years, with the improvement of detection and treatment technology, the survival time of liver cancer patients has been greatly extended, and the title of “king of cancers” has been changed to “king of cancers”. The prognosis of pancreatic cancer is extremely poor, so early detection is particularly important, and I hope you will pay attention to the early symptoms.
Pancreatic Cancer – The King of Cancers
With the advancement of medical technology, the survival rate of most cancers is improving, such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer and other cancers. In recent decades, the survival rate of cancer patients has improved dramatically, but there is one exception to this rule, which is pancreatic cancer, where the survival rate has remained stagnant.
Pancreatic cancer is known as “the king of cancers”, and according to statistics, the mortality rate of pancreatic cancer patients in China is as high as 92.7%, which is the highest among all cancers. The treatment of this disease is difficult, the degree of deterioration is high, and in the process of continuous development, it will cause serious threat to human health. If the discovery is not timely, and no reasonable measures are taken to actively improve the situation, the five-year survival rate of late-stage patients is very low, basically less than 10%, and the median survival time is only about one year.
Pancreatic cancer is most common in people over 50 years of age and slightly more common in men. According to its occurrence in the pancreas, it is divided into pancreatic head cancer, pancreatic body cancer, pancreatic tail cancer and whole pancreas cancer, among which pancreatic head cancer accounts for the majority, and most of the pancreatic head cancers are clinically found to be progressive obstructive jaundice due to its involvement. Cancer of the tail of the body is more insidious and most of them have metastasis when found, and about 1/4 of the patients present with peripheral venous thrombosis.
Why pancreatic cancer is so deadly
Early symptoms of pancreatic cancer are not obvious. The main symptom is jaundice, a yellow staining of the eyes or skin, which can also occur during hepatitis or biliary tract disease, so early pancreatic cancer is also misdiagnosed as hepatitis or cholecystitis or gallstones. Whole pancreas cancer is most commonly associated with abdominal pain, epigastric fullness and discomfort and jaundice.
Adenocarcinoma is the most common type of exocrine pancreatic tumour and its patients have a very high mortality rate. The main reason is that the metastasis rate of pancreatic cancer is very high, and advanced pancreatic cancer usually metastasises to many organs such as liver, intestines, stomach and so on, thus bringing great difficulties to the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Moreover, due to its insidious onset, it is difficult to find and treat early, including the poor prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients, which also indirectly leads to the high mortality rate of pancreatic cancer.
In addition, most of the pancreatic cancer patients are inoperable, and only about ten per cent of them can be operated. Surgery cannot remove pancreatic cancer cleanly, and many patients will still have recurrence and metastasis after surgery. After surgery, pancreatic cancer patients still need radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immune-targeted therapy, etc., and the control effect is still not good, which is one of the main reasons why pancreatic cancer can be called the king of cancers.
Diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer
Treatment of early pancreatic cancer: early pancreatic cancer patients without metastasis can be treated with surgery if their physical condition permits, but old and weak people should be cautious in choosing. Surgery is a kind of local treatment method, which often can not completely resect the cancer tumour, and it is easy to recur and metastasise, so consolidation treatment in the later stage is the key. Post-operative treatment can be combined with biological immunotherapy, which can accurately kill residual cancer cells after surgery, improve patients’ immunity, consolidate the efficacy of surgery, effectively improve the prognosis, prevent metastasis and recurrence.
Treatment of middle and late stage pancreatic cancer: most pancreatic cancer patients are in middle and late stage when they are diagnosed, most of them have spread and metastasised, so the possibility of surgical treatment is very small, and most of them adopt radiotherapy and traditional Chinese medicine, which can control the local symptoms and inhibit the cancer cells, but there are some limitations.
Radiotherapy has great toxic side effects, which can make patients more fatigue, skin damage and even hair loss, etc. Chemotherapy can kill cancer cells and also harm normal cells, causing a series of side effects, such as vomiting, nausea, diarrhoea and low red and white blood cells and platelets, etc., which are not tolerated by the old and weak. Radiotherapy combined with bio-immunotherapy for middle and advanced pancreatic cancer can effectively improve patients’ immune mechanism, reduce the toxic side effects of radiotherapy, improve patients’ drug resistance, and greatly enhance the therapeutic effect of radiotherapy.
According to Chinese medicine, pancreas is located in the right side of cardia and the left side of pylorus, which is the place of access. For pancreatic cancer, TCM treatment mainly includes drug treatment and external treatment. Pharmacological treatment is to mix different Chinese herbs according to the symptoms of different organs; external treatment can be applied with poultices, creams on the skin and acupuncture. In addition, Xu Jingfan, a master of national medicine, believes that the clinical treatment of pancreatic cancer should be based on the legislation of the word “Tong”, and innovatively put forward the “Five-Tong Method”, i.e., Tongluo to alleviate pain, Tongguang to reduce the yellowish colour, Tongvang to dissipate the knots, Tongyang to relieve depression, and Tongcheng to nourish the correctness of the accumulation of the cancer, and the therapeutic effect is also very remarkable.
Early detection of pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer lacks a specific method of early diagnosis. Symptoms usually do not appear until the tumour has grown to the point where it affects the function of the stomach, liver or other adjacent organs. Symptoms are usually vague and non-specific and can be easily overlooked. Therefore, searching for valuable molecular markers of pancreatic cancer, imaging tests and molecular level tests such as whole genome, transcriptome, proteome, etc., strengthening the prevention of pancreatic cancer and the surveillance of high-risk groups, and detecting early cases in time are the keys to improving the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer and its prognosis.
For example, some patients show elevated fasting blood glucose or impaired glucose tolerance in the early stage, which is the result of damage to pancreatic tissues, so attention should be paid to patients with abnormal blood glucose. When patients have symptoms such as nausea, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss, middle-upper abdominal pain and jaundice, although they may be caused by other diseases and the consequences are far less serious than pancreatic cancer, any symptom should be paid attention to and further examined to achieve positive prevention.
Pancreatic Cancer Prevention Sudden binge drinking and heavy drinking are the main risk factors for pancreatic cancer, so binge drinking and alcoholism should be avoided. You should drink alcohol in moderation and have three meals on time.