Being healthy suddenly discovered end-stage liver cancer, how to prevent it?

Hepatitis B vaccine in a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City – Photo: TTD

Recently, there have been many cases of liver cancer that patients only know they are sick when they are in the terminal, metastatic stage. Liver cancer screening results are less successful because 90% of liver cancers are HCC.

Pham Xuan Dung, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital, said that Vietnam is in the epidemiological area of ​​hepatitis B and C, has a high rate of liver cancer compared to the global general level.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of liver cancer cases in Vietnam in 2018 was 23,667 cases, which represents 14.4% of the total number of cancers in both genders.

No signal warned

Four months ago, Mr. NTT (64 years old, living in Vung Tau) discovered liver cancer when the disease was in an advanced stage. Ms. BC, a relative of Mr. T., said that when Mr. T. was taken to the hospital by his family in Ho Chi Minh City, the doctor announced that the tumor was ruptured, unable to apply the infusion method medication or surgery like another patient.

“Because my uncle had too much pain in his body, he just went to the hospital, but before that, his health was normal, there were no warning signs,” shared Ms. C.

At present, Mr. T.’s health is very weak, his belly is swollen, he cannot eat or drink. The family is giving Mr. T. to drink Vietnamese medicine with a “keep drinking water” mentality. According to Ms. C., Mr. T.’s liver cancer is inherited because someone in his family has died from this disease and there is also a person with cirrhosis.

On the “Questions and Answers to Cancer Doctors” fan page with 14,000 members, many accounts write the status line thanks to help when relatives discover late-stage liver cancer, they have accounts to announce the death of their relatives only. After a short time of treatment, he fights against liver cancer.

The TDN account wrote: “My father had liver cancer, until it was discovered, it was a late stage, metastasis. The hospital said that his condition was very difficult to cure, the family was mentally prepared. He weighed more, so his father was very tired, he lost a lot of weight, his stomach was swollen and rigid … Does our group know of any Vietnamese remedies for liver cancer?

Doctors at the Thu Duc District Hospital (Ho Chi Minh City) said that the liver is the “main and most important” blood filtration factory in the human body. Because the liver is the organ “found in the nose to bear poisonous substances,” liver cancer is the cancer with the highest rate of infected people in Vietnam today.

Difficult to detect routine screening

Dr. Pham Van Binh, Head of the Department of Abdominal Surgery 1 at K Hospital, said that the nature of liver cancer and lung cancer is malignant, the disease progresses rapidly, the doubling time of cancer cells is fast ( doubling the cell time in relation to the degree of malignancy of the disease). Furthermore, both the liver and the lungs are responsible for the most important parts of the body.

Screening consists of detecting diseases in an asymptomatic population, thus detecting those infected, generally more effective for diseases that are easy to carry out and detect.

But for lung cancer, if you only take a normal x-ray, the cancer cannot be detected in childhood, but you want to find a multiple sequence tomography, but with this technique, it is not possible. widely implemented due to low cost. Very little is found through conventional screening.

Another aspect that makes lung and liver cancer detection less effective, 90% of liver cancers are HCC. The main cause of this form of the disease is hepatitis, which leads to cirrhosis and then progresses to liver cancer.

Dr Binh said the Ministry of Health’s liver cancer diagnosis and treatment protocol issued a few years ago mandated that liver cancer screening be based on a trio of diagnostic tests and imaging, including Hepatitis B tests and fetal antigen test, this antigen decreases in adulthood, but in people with HCC the antigen increases.

But it is not always possible to do this trio of tests and diagnoses, even very difficult, where the main means of screening are only ultrasound, but the aspiration that ultrasound will detect cannot be expected. get liver cancer.

How to effectively prevent liver and lung cancer?

According to the results of the cancer registry from 2012 to 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City, liver cancer in men accounts for 16.4% of all cancer positions, ranking second among the main cancers after of lung cancer. For women, liver cancer accounts for 6.5% of all cancers and is the sixth largest cancer after cancers of the breast, thyroid, cervix, colorectal, and lung.

According to Dung, with the hepatitis B vaccination program since 2000 in Ho Chi Minh City, the rate of liver cancer will decrease after a few decades.

Dr. Binh said that we should not depend on detection, but rather we should pay attention to preventing the etiology of the disease. For example, lung cancer, tobacco is the main cause of tobacco, so do not smoke, and if you smoke, you must stop before.

With liver cancer, if you want to diagnose liver cancer, you have to rely on the trio mentioned above, including tests for viral hepatitis. Therefore, to eliminate the cause, it is necessary to be vaccinated against the hepatitis virus and lead a healthy life, such as not drinking alcohol …

For people 40 and over, who have been drinking, have smoked, regular checkups are very important and should be examined at a reputable and quality screening center, if there are symptoms such as coughing. If you are very tired or have a history of smoking or drinking alcohol (the risk factor), intensive tests and screenings are needed.

To be honest, the amount of liver cancer is increasing, due to the standard of living and risk factors, patients do not always have clinical signs, but when there are signs that the disease is in a late stage. , the tumor has grown and can no longer be operated, less than 6 months after the discovery of the disease, the patient may die. Therefore, prevention by limiting risk factors and then periodic physical examinations to detect the disease early.

The truth about liver cancer

With the growing number of new cases every year, liver cancer not only overtakes lung cancer to become the most common cancer in Vietnam, but also a threat to Vietnamese life due to the death rate. high.