Stomach cancer refers to cancer happened in stomach, which originates from epithelium mucosae cells on top layer of stomach wall, and can be happened in any parts of the stomach (the most common is on sinus ventriculi pylorus area, followed by fundus cardia area, least on body of stomach), and can also invade into stomach wall of different depth or different width.
How high is the incidence of stomach cancer?
The annual incidence of stomach cancer is about 0.000176; there are high incidence rates in Japan and Denmark, while American and Australia are relatively low in incidence rate; meanwhile, the incidence rate of male is higher than that of female, and it is about 3:1; the peak age for incidence is among 50-60 years of old.
What are the common causes of stomach cancer?
1. Environment factor: incidences of different countries or different areas are obviously different;
2. Diet factor: long term intake of milden and rot food, brined vegetable or pickling fish or meat, overtaken salt shall increase the risk of stomach cancer;
3. Inherent factor: epidemiologic investigation found that stomach cancer has the tendency of family-centralizing;
4. Immunity factor: people with lower immunity shall have higher risk of stomach cancer.
What are presymptoms of stomach cancer?
1. Abdominal pain: it is the most common symptom, usually starts with intermittent unclear pain and often is diagnosed with gastritis or gastric ulcer and so on;
2. Epigastric discomfort: mostly is the sensation of fullness or burning. It can be relieved temporarily but also reoccurs;
3. Loss of appetite, belching or other dyspepsia symptoms: afterfood fullness and actively restriction on food, often accompanied with belching;
4. Dark stool or fecal occult blood being positive: if stool manifests darkening without intake of blood bean curd or drugs like bismuth agents before, go to hospital immediately for timely examination;
5. Debilitation, emaciation and aneamia: they are common symptoms of stomach cancer. Usually patients lose appetite so that their digestive tracts suffer from blood loss, and this cause them tired and weak.
How to conduct diagnosis?
1. Physical examination;
2. Laboratory examination;
3. Imageology examination:
(1) Upper gastrointestinal X-rays and barium meal opacification;
(2) Enhancement type CT (computer tomoscan);
(3) MRI;
(4) PET-CT;
(5) Ultrasonic inspection;
4. Endoscopy examination:
(1) Gastroscopy;
(2) Abdominoscopy.
What are traditional treatments for stomach cancer?
1. Surgery: it is the first choice for early or middle stomach cancer patients and also is the fundamental and effective method;
2. Chemotherapy: chemotherapy works as the adjunctive therapy after surgery to eliminate the residual cancer cells, also can be applied to control the metastasis of cancer cells during or before surgery, so that enhance the success chance of surgery;
3. Radiotherapy: radiotherapy performed during or before or after surgery can enhance the thoroughness of surgery and improve the predicted effect, and it can also relief symptoms and prolong survival years.
TCM can also be provided.
During stomach cancer treatment, TCM can be performed through this whole process. If combine TCM with western medicine, the therapeutic effect shall be greatly be improved. The oral-taken or artery- perfused Chinese medicine, can make up the inadequacy of western medicine, and prevent or reduce the toxic reaction or side effects caused by chemotherapy as well as radiotherapy, meanwhile it can also effectively prevent recurrence and metastasis of cancer cells after surgery so that prolong survival year and improve living quality as well.
What are the dieting principles after surgery?
1. Eat less while multiple times for meal;
2. Intake food that is rich in protein and can be easily digested, like rice water, egg soup, jardinière soup, milk, albumen powder, etc.;
3. Eat less sweets or fats;
4. Prohibit too cold or hot or spicy and stimulative food or seasoning, and stimulative drinking like wine or tea;
5. Prevent anaemia and properly intake some lean meat, fish, shrimp, animal liver, Chinese jujube and so on;
6. When eating food that is relatively coarse and hard to digest, chew it and swallow it carefully and slowly.
Source:http://www.asiancancer.com/cancer-topics/stomach-cancer
