Cancer becomes a chronic disease What brings hope
to cancer patients is several innovations in antitumor drugs.
In 1997, the world’s first targeted drug, rituximab (injection), was launched in the United States for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It attacked cancer cells while reducing damage to normal cells, unlike the original. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy, “killing one thousand enemies and self-destructing eight hundred”, thus opened the era of precision cancer treatment. By 2001, the small-molecule targeted drug Gleevec was born, increasing the 5-year survival rate of chronic myeloid leukemia patients from 30% to 90%. Patients can control tumor development by taking medicine at home, and individual cancers have become like high blood pressure. “chronic diseases” such as diabetes. In 2003, targeted drugs were launched in China. For nearly 50% of patients with advanced lung cancer, targeted therapy can prolong their survival to more than 3 years.
Researchers from the National Cancer Center, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and other institutions analyzed the 5-year relative survival rates of 26 types of cancer in 17 cancer registries in China from 2003 to 2015, which increased from 30.9% previously to 40.5% from 2012 to 2015 , an increase of nearly 10% in 10 years.
”There are various treatment methods such as targeted drugs, precision treatment technology and immunotherapy. There are many patients with locally advanced lung cancer who live more than 20 years after diagnosis.” Chairman of the Lung Cancer Medical Education Committee of the China Medical Education Association, Capital Zhi Xiuyi, director of the Center for Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment at the Medical University, said, “We can actually be more calm when dealing with tumors.”
With the aging process of China’s population and the impact of environmental carcinogenic factors, the high incidence of cancer is inevitable. To suffer between despair and hope, it is better to pay attention to primary and secondary prevention of tumors. Among them, the former refers to the prevention of etiology, the purpose is to identify and eliminate the risk factors of cancer, and prevent problems before they occur. The latter refers to the early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment of malignant tumors, and its purpose is to improve the cure rate and reduce the mortality and disability rate.
A major work of Zhi Xiuyi in recent years is to call for cancer prevention and early diagnosis and treatment. “What ordinary people can do is to screen and diagnose early, so as to achieve early treatment and early recovery. Only in this way can they face cancer calmly.” Zhi Xiuyi said that the “Healthy China 2030” Plan outline proposed One of the means to achieve the goal of “increasing the overall 5-year survival rate of cancer by 15%” is to “carry out early diagnosis and early treatment of key cancers in high-incidence areas”.
How to achieve survival with cancer
In fact , 80% of cancer pain can be controlled by drugs, and 20% of refractory cancer pain can also be controlled within an affordable range through minimally invasive surgery combined with drugs. “We are not bad at all technically, but the biggest difficulty in pain management is the concept.” Lu Guijun, executive director of the Department of Pain at Tsinghua Chang Gung Hospital in Beijing, lamented that many patients still regard “tolerating pain” as a virtue, and they don’t know what to do. Pain relief, some doctors also ignore the pain of patients.
”The misunderstanding of analgesics by both doctors and patients is an important reason for the untreated chronic cancer pain.” Chen Fan, deputy chief physician of the Department of Breast Oncology, Peking University Cancer Hospital, said that the progress of cancer pain constitutes a vicious circle, and long-term pain Stimulating the nervous system to cause pathological remodeling makes people more sensitive to pain, and will only endure more pain.
”Now that there are various new drugs and medical methods, cancer has gradually become a chronic disease and a lifestyle disease. Don’t be overly afraid of this disease.” Transform professional medical knowledge into vernacular that patients can understand. “To really make cancer patients live longer and better, we must let them take the initiative to master their disease information, master the changes in their disease, and benefit from new therapeutic drugs and treatment methods,” said Zhi Xiuyi. As a chronic disease that accompanies patients for a long time, “family members should be qualified family members, and doctors should be qualified doctors.” (The interviewed patients in the article are all pseudonyms)
