What should I do if lung cancer returns?

Mondo Health Updated on 2024-01-29

I. Introduction

Lung cancer is probably familiar to everyone and hears a lot, because lung cancer has a very high incidence and mortality rate. Not only in China, but also in the world, the incidence and mortality of lung cancer are very high, and they are on the rise. Global statistics in 2018 show that male lung cancer accounts for the first place in the incidence and mortality of malignant tumors. Among women, lung cancer ranks third in the incidence of malignant tumors, and the second in mortality after breast cancer.

Our country's statistics in 2015 show that lung cancer ranks first and second in the incidence of malignant tumors in both men and women, respectively, and the mortality rate is the first. Among them, the incidence of lung squamous cell carcinoma has shown a downward trend in recent years, accounting for about 30%-40% of lung cancerThe incidence of adenocarcinoma is on the rise, accounting for about 40%-55% of lung cancers.

I have talked a lot about lung cancer before, and I will not repeat it today, but today I will mainly talk about the situation after lung cancer.

IIPerformance

Since it is said that **, then it must have been diagnosed with lung cancer before, and after a series of **, then no matter what kind of **, there will definitely be a regular reexamination in the later stage, generally once every three months to half a year. Therefore, ** is generally found through re-examination, and of course there are some people who will have some performance. Let's talk about some of the common symptoms of lung cancer.

Fatigue

Nowadays fatigue is a very common phenomenon, many people will feel that they are tired, but for normal people, when they are tired, they will rest and sleep, and they will recover quickly. Patients with lung cancer are different, the tumor itself consumes a lot of the body, and then after surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the physique is in a relatively weak state, and it usually takes a long time to recover. But if the tumour is **, it will start to cause depletion to the body. Originally, the digestion and absorption function is not good, and the tumor also absorbs some nutrients, which leads to our own insufficient nutrition, which is not enough to support the consumption of the body, and we become more and more fatigued. Some people will become thinner and thinner after this kind of consumption, but the weight loss of lung cancer patients is not particularly obvious, like pancreatic cancer patients will be more obvious, on the one hand, pancreatic cancer has a greater impact on the digestive tract, on the other hand, pancreatic cancer grows faster and consumes more nutrients.

Therefore, the fatigue of lung cancer** occurs frequently and is difficult to relieve.

Fever

It is also common for lung cancer to have fever for many reasons, such as necrosis of tumor tissue, metabolites of tumor entering the bloodstream, brain metastasis of tumors, and some inflammatory reactions during tumor growth. Some people hear that tumor necrosis is strange, can tumors die on their own?This is actually quite normal. The growth of the tumor is very fast, the tumor cells in the marginal position will continue to invade the normal tissues and continue to grow outward, while the tumor cells in the center will gradually die due to lack of nutrients.

There are many causes of fever in lung cancer** patients, but all of them are directly or indirectly related to tumors, and the tumors are not controlled, and the fever is difficult to control. Therefore, the fever caused by lung cancer is generally continuous or reversed.

Pain

Pain is also a very important manifestation of lung cancer**, especially when the tumor invades nerves, compresses other organs, or bone metastases or brain metastases occur. Chest pain may be present in general, such as persistent, severe chest pain, which often indicates widespread chest wall invasionPersistent shoulder and back pain often indicates that the tumor has invaded the tissues outside the chest wall. The pain of metastasis is generally localized to the site of metastasis, and bone pain caused by bone metastases is usually severe and difficult to relieveBrain metastases can cause headache and are often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, aphasia, hemiplegia, unsteadiness, nystagmus and other manifestationsLymphatic metastases can also cause pain, which can occur when swollen lymph nodes press on surrounding tissues.

The pain caused by the tumor is usually fixed and continuous.

Swollen lymph nodes

Lymph node metastasis is a common metastasis of lung cancer, such as mediastinal lymph nodes, hilar lymph nodes, and supraclavicular lymph nodes. So once you find swollen lymph nodes, be careful. Symptoms caused by swollen lymph nodes include palpable masses and symptoms caused by lymphemous compression. Palpable masses are more common in the supraclavicular and cervical areasSymptoms caused by lymphema include hoarseness, facial edema of the upper limbs, pleural effusion, headache, etc.

Lymphadenopathy caused by lung cancer** is characterized by being hard and pushable, non-adherent to each other in the early morning, and fusion in the late stage.

Miscellaneous

In addition to the above four manifestations, lung cancer** may also cause some other symptoms, such as cough, hemoptysis, dyspnea, hoarseness, chest pain and other symptoms common to lung cancer, as well as anemia, scleroderma, acanthosis, hypertrophic osteoarthropathy, etc.

These symptoms are only an early warning to the patient, and not everyone will experience them. If it appears, it is necessary to go for a follow-up examination in time to detect the lesion as soon as possibleIf these manifestations are not present, regular ** should also be carried out to avoid changes in the disease.

III

For lung cancer, it is necessary to clarify the type and stage of the disease and the physical condition of the patient.

Typing

For example, small cell lung cancer** is often treated with chemoradiotherapy, while non-small cell lung cancer often uses immunotherapy and targeted therapy in addition to chemoradiotherapy.

Immunity and targeting** are emerging modalities that have shown promising results in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, and many of these drugs have been incorporated into first-line regimens. Moreover, many commonly used immune and targeted drugs have been included in the scope of medical insurance reimbursement, which greatly reduces the financial burden of lung cancer patients.

Staging

Lung cancer** is usually staged later, but there are different options depending on the location, extent of invasion, and metastasis.

For patients with a small range of local invasion, surgery can still be used, and after surgical resection, better results can be achieved and the prognosis is relatively betterHowever, patients with a large range of invasion are not suitable for surgery**, usually local radiotherapy or systemic chemotherapy are the mainstay, and appropriate immunotherapy and targeted drugs can also be selected according to the results of genetic testing**.

If there is a transfer, it will need to be handled in different ways depending on the location and scope of the transfer. In the case of lymph node metastasis, systemic chemotherapy is generally used to suppress the tumor, and some of the metastatic lymph nodes can also be treated with local radiotherapyIf bone metastases occur, radiotherapy is usually used to resolve the local metastases, and drugs are given to delay bone destruction, and bone cement reinforcement is required in severe bone destructionIf there is metastasis of important organs, drugs are also needed to protect the corresponding organs, such as liver metastasis requires hepatoprotective enzyme and choleretic yellowing, and brain metastasis requires dehydration to reduce intracranial pressure, antiepilepsy, etc.

Physical condition

The patient's physical condition is an important factor in determining the best means, if the patient's physical condition is better and the symptoms are less, more active means can be used, such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, etc.;If the patient's physical condition is poor and the symptoms are more, they can only take relatively mild measures, such as reduced-dose chemotherapy, low-dose radiotherapy, immunization**, targeting**, traditional Chinese medicine**, etc.;If the patient's physical condition is extremely weak and cannot tolerate any Western medicine**, it can only be maintained with traditional Chinese medicine**.

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