Risk factors of oral cancer
1. Smoking, drinking and chewing betel nut: According to research by Ge, president of Kaohsiung Medical University, people with drinking habits are 2.2 times more likely to develop oral cancer than those without drinking habits; As for smokers, their chances of developing oral cancer are 4.6 times that of non-smokers; People who love eat areca are 6.9 times more likely to suffer from oral cancer than those who don't love eat areca. People who have the habit of drinking, smoking and chewing betel nut at the same time are 123 times more likely to develop oral cancer than ordinary people! This shows that tobacco, alcohol and betel nut are really the primary risk factors for oral cancer.
2. Poor oral hygiene: gums are often inflamed, and long-term severe tooth decay will also reach the mouth, which may evolve into oral cancer.
3. Diabetic patients: Diabetic patients are prone to oral cancer, and the reason is still unclear, which may be related to long-term oral inflammation.
4. Virus infection: Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is not only related to cervical cancer, but also may lead to oral cancer.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Stages and symptoms of oral cancer
grading
common symptom
(1) Precancerous lesion stage
There is an unexplained ulcer in the mouth that cannot be cured for more than 2 weeks. Long-term red or white oral mass may also be a precursor of oral cancer.
(2) Oral cancer stage
The lump in the mouth is getting bigger and bigger, and it begins to feel pain and even bleeding; Several people will have a lump on their neck at the same time. At the end, patients may even find it difficult to open their mouths, so that they can't eat anything, and swallowing will hurt. The time from precancerous lesions to real oral cancer is not necessarily, but it is generally about 2 ~ 3 years.
Self-detection steps of oral cancer "Are you likely to get oral cancer? If you are at high risk of oral cancer, you might as well spend 5 minutes at home looking in the mirror:
1. Open your mouth in front of the mirror and look in the mirror to see if there is any abnormal red or white lump in your mouth; If you are not sure, you can also touch it with your hand. If there is a small ulcer or unknown mass, you can observe it for 2 weeks to see if it will disappear on its own. (The most common sites of oral cancer in Taiwan Province Province are tongue and buccal mucosa).
2. Feel the neck for lumps. Once a lump is found in the neck, if it is diagnosed as oral cancer by a doctor, it is usually the third stage of oral cancer, which means that the cancer cell has metastasized to the neck.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? If problems or uncertain factors are found in the self-examination, you must go to the hospital's otolaryngology or oral surgery for examination. Biopsy may even be needed to confirm the diagnosis. After the diagnosis of oral cancer, it is necessary to judge the stage by computer tomography, abdominal ultrasound, chest X-ray and bone scanning to see if the cancer has metastasized to bone, lung and liver.
The prognosis of oral cancer is very poor, and the recurrence rate and mortality rate of advanced oral cancer are high, so early detection is very important. If treatment can be started before precancerous lesions or early cancer, the mortality rate can be greatly reduced. Precancerous lesions are divided into mild, moderate and severe. Severe precancerous lesions have a high probability of turning into oral cancer, and the main treatment is laser or surgical resection of tumors. If the patients are only mild or moderate, they can actively improve their living habits and avoid risk factors, and strengthen their compliance (such as quitting smoking and drinking, eat areca), and some people can recover without drugs.
* * * Subsidize free oral mucosa screening. People over 30 who have the habit of smoking or chewing betel nut can go to the hospital for free screening. The screening frequency is 2 years 1 time. Those who meet the requirements can go to otolaryngology or oral surgery for screening. Doctors will do visual inspection and palpation, and further biopsy will be done if abnormalities are found. Dr. Liao Liren pointed out that people with oral cancer also have a higher risk of esophageal cancer, because the risk factors of these two cancers are the same (tobacco, alcohol, betel nut). Once oral cancer is diagnosed, it is suggested that esophageal cancer should also be detected.
Improvement and preventive measures of oral cancer
● Early detection and early treatment. It is very important to start receiving treatment at the stage of precancerous lesions.
● Don't stay up late often, your body will suffer from decreased immunity due to frequent staying up late and lack of sleep; In addition, staying up late is also easy to cause oral inflammation.
● Stay away from tobacco, alcohol and betel nut and try to maintain good exercise habits.
● You can eat more antioxidant fruits and vegetables such as carrots and tomatoes, and other dark fruits and vegetables can also be ingested in many ways.
● Face up to oral hygiene problems, brush your teeth and floss frequently. If you want to install dentures, you'd better install dentures with better quality, so as to avoid the inferior dentures bringing extra burden to your mouth.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma When we breathe, the air passes through the nasopharynx, then through the throat and trachea, and finally into the lungs. Nasopharynx is the passage through which airflow passes, and it also has the function of moistening qi and producing * * * when vocalizing; The nasopharynx is rich in lymph glands, which are also a part of the human immune system and can remove some harmful substances from the air. In addition, nasopharynx communicates with middle ear through eustachian tube. When the nasopharynx is blocked by inflammation or tumor, the eustachian tube will produce otitis media. The nasopharynx is located directly behind the nasal cavity, below the head and above the oropharynx, which is the center of the head. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma can be formed when the surface cells of the nasopharynx are sick. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is not uncommon in Taiwan Province Province, with an average of about 1500 people suffering from it every year. The average age of male and female patients is about 49 years old.
Risk factors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
1. Race: Director Xiong of Radiation Oncology Department of Yadong Hospital said that nasopharyngeal carcinoma has another nickname called "Guangdong Cancer" abroad. According to research, nasopharyngeal carcinoma rarely occurs in Europe and America. Even though it is as rare as Japanese and Koreans in Asia, it is more likely to be obtained in southeast coastal provinces such as Chinese mainland (Guangdong Province has the highest incidence), Taiwan Province Province, Singapore and Hongkong. Therefore, race and the above-mentioned residential areas are also one of the risk factors.
2. Heredity: If someone in the first-degree relatives suffers from nasopharyngeal carcinoma, his probability of getting nasopharyngeal carcinoma will be higher than that of ordinary people.
3. Environment: The working environment is not ventilated, and places where the air is full of sawdust and dust are more likely to cause nasopharyngeal carcinoma, such as decoration workers, which are considered as high-risk groups. In addition, long-term exposure to formaldehyde in daily life (some new clothes, decorations, preservatives in furniture or food, and even fake wine all contain formaldehyde) is also easy to cause nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
4. Diet: Salted salted fish contains nitrosamines, which are recognized as carcinogens. The younger you start eating salted fish, the more you eat, the higher the chance of getting nasopharyngeal carcinoma; However, if you can eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, there is still a chance to reduce the risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
5. Virus: Clinically, most patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma will find that the antibody titer of EB virus in blood is higher than that of normal people.
6. Gender: Domestic data show that in recent years, the number of men suffering from nasopharyngeal carcinoma is 3.5 times that of women.
As for picking your nose, it has nothing to do with the formation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, because the nasopharynx is in a deep position and your fingers can't touch it at all.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Symptoms of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Because the nasopharynx is connected with the nasal cavity, oropharynx and eustachian tube, there will be more ear-nose related symptoms in the early stage of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Nasal congestion (because of nasopharyngeal tumor, air is not easy to enter), nosebleeds and other noses; Ears, such as unilateral hearing loss (such as hearing loss), unilateral tinnitus, rhinorrhea, unilateral otitis media, etc. Take otitis media as an example. Although infants are often infected with otitis media, adults are not easily infected. If adults are infected with otitis media, they should go to the otolaryngology department for further examination as soon as possible. In addition to the symptoms of otorhinolaryngology, it may also be that there is a painless lump in the neck lymph, which some patients will accidentally find when holding their cheeks; Later, there will be symptoms such as dysphagia, sore throat and headache. These symptoms may not appear in everyone, but the characteristic is that the symptoms will not disappear and will last for at least 3 weeks.
Diagnosis and treatment: check the nasopharynx with nasopharynx endoscope hose or oropharyngeal reflector. If you find anything wrong, slice it for diagnosis. As for staging, it depends on lung X-ray, bone scan, computed tomography and abdominal ultrasound to see if cancer cells have metastasized. Health insurance covers all examinations. Because nasopharyngeal carcinoma is located in the center of the head, surgical resection of the tumor is risky and difficult, so radiotherapy is the main treatment for early nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Unless the tumor recurs after radiotherapy, doctors will consider resection or laser treatment. The success rate of primary radiotherapy is over 90%, the prognosis is good and the recurrence rate is low. Mid-term radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy, and late chemotherapy is the main method.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Improvement and preventive measures of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
● People with family history, over 40 years old, had better go to the otolaryngology department regularly. As for how often it should be checked, it depends on the diagnosis of each doctor.
● The incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Taiwan Province Province is high. Adults who have the above symptoms and have not improved for more than 3 weeks should go to the otolaryngology department as soon as possible.
● Eat more fruits and vegetables, any kind of fruits and vegetables can be used, and the weight should be more.
● The working environment should be ventilated as much as possible.
● Eat less salty food, such as salted fish.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Esophageal cancer: The esophagus is a conduit for the oral cavity to transport food to the stomach, and it has no digestive function. If the esophageal mucosa is exposed to carcinogens for a long time, it will easily lead to mucosal inflammation, injury and cytopathy. About 2000 people suffer from esophageal cancer every year; The average age of men and women is about 57 and 67, respectively.
Risk factors of esophageal cancer
1. Smoking, drinking and betel nut: Smoking, drinking and chewing betel nut are the most direct risk factors for esophageal cancer. Men are more prone to esophageal cancer than women, and the ratio of male to female cancer patients is 13: 1. This is also because the number of men exposed to tobacco, alcohol and betel nut is much higher than that of women.
2. Gastric acid stimulation: the esophagus is chronically affected for a long time, such as chronic gastroesophageal reflux, and it is more likely to form esophageal cancer.
3. Hot food * * *: It is cold in winter, and many people have the habit of eating hot food and drinking hot drinks. The esophagus is just a long and thin tube, which is easy to be scalded by hot food or hot drink, thus causing esophageal injury. If hot food is spicy, it is even more * * *.
4. Strong acid or strong alkali * * *: If you eat or deliberately swallow strong alkali or strong acid, it is of course another kind of harm to the esophagus.
Symptoms of esophageal cancer Esophageal cancer can cause esophageal obstruction, poor food delivery, difficulty swallowing, and foreign body sensation when eating, but most of them will not feel pain at first. Director Xiong Pei Wei pointed out that when eating is difficult to swallow, many patients' eating habits will change, and they can't eat dry rice, so they decided to eat porridge instead. Even when the patient couldn't swallow liquid food and saliva overflowed, it was actually too slow to see a doctor. Symptoms of advanced esophageal cancer are loss of appetite, weight loss, hoarseness, cough and even inability to drink water.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Diagnosis and treatment usually use esophagoscopy or gastroscopy for invasive examination. But doctors usually use gastroscope directly, because they can see esophagus, stomach and duodenum by the way. In the initial treatment of cancer, surgery is the first priority. If lymph node metastasis or tumor is too large in the middle and late stage, radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy will be used instead of surgery (because the failure rate and the risk of complications are high at this stage), but the success rate is only 20% ~ 30%. Esophageal cancer has a poor prognosis. Once symptoms appear, it is best to see a doctor as soon as possible.
Improvement and preventive measures of esophageal cancer
● If you feel foreign body sensation when swallowing food, if this symptom lasts for more than 3 weeks, you should see a gastroenterologist. Because if only short-term inflammation leads to dysphagia, it will generally heal within 3 weeks. Director Xiong appealed not to "gradually adapt" to the eating habits from dry to thin, from solid food to liquid food, but to face up to the problems that abnormal swallowing symptoms may represent.
● Quit smoking, drinking and betel nut.
● Eat more fruits and vegetables; Eat less food that is too hot or spicy. Both heat and spicy food can cause mucosal inflammation.
● If you have a history of gastroesophageal reflux or chronic esophageal problems, you should receive gastroscopy or esophagoscopy regularly after 40 years old.
● Because esophageal cancer is easy to relapse, the success rate of treatment is low, and cancer cells are also easy to metastasize to the lungs, liver or bones, so after the course of treatment, it is necessary to follow up regularly according to the doctor's advice. Most cancers are prone to relapse within six months to three years after the course of treatment, and the probability of recurrence after five years is very low.
Director Xiong pointed out that if patients with esophageal cancer must receive radiotherapy, under the premise of economic conditions, they can consider using new spiral knife radiotherapy, which has the advantage of less side effects, but the self-funded asking price is about 70 ~ 200 thousand yuan, depending on the charging standards of each hospital. Patients can decide whether to use it or not.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Dr. LIAO Liren said that about 500 people in Taiwan Province Province suffer from laryngeal cancer every year, which is relatively low compared with other head and neck cancers. The larynx is divided into three parts: the upper glottis, the glottis and the lower glottis. Most laryngeal cancers are located in the glottis.
Risk factors of laryngeal cancer
1. Smokers are prone to laryngeal cancer.
2. People with long-term gastroesophageal reflux. Stomach acid not only affects the esophagus, but also affects the throat.
3. Excessive use of vocal cords will lead to excessive throat. When your voice is hoarse, try to rest your vocal cords and don't talk all the time.
The symptoms of laryngeal cancer are persistent hoarseness (at least 1 week) and foreign body sensation in the throat. Dr. Liao Liren said that the symptoms of laryngeal cancer and esophageal cancer are sometimes very similar. Both of them may have difficulty swallowing, hoarse voice, easy to choke when drinking water or swallowing, and often cough. This is because the esophagus is connected below the throat (the throat is above and the esophagus is below). When swallowed, food or drink will pass through the throat and esophagus. For example, esophageal cancer may also invade the nerves that control vocal cord activity, so the symptoms of both are similar.
Have you taken care of your husband's health? Diagnostic methods and treatment methods are examined by mirrors and endoscopes, including hard throat endoscope or nasopharyngeal soft endoscope. Once the internal tumor is found, it is diagnosed by microscope section, and then the staging is judged by computerized tomography. In terms of treatment, early laryngeal microsurgery was used to remove tumors and general anesthesia was used; Chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy was used in the middle and late stage. The prognosis of laryngeal cancer is generally good, the initial cure rate is above 80%, but the recurrence rate is relatively high, even if it is cured, it cannot be careless.
Improvement and preventive measures of laryngeal cancer
● Do not smoke; Also avoid gastroesophageal reflux caused by excessive pressure and try to relax.
● Speak less when your voice is hoarse, so that your vocal cords can get a full rest. Many people are used to clearing their throats before continuing to speak when their throats are hoarse. In fact, the action of "clearing the throat" will also hurt the vocal cords in the long run, and this habit should be avoided.
● Replenish water at any time to moisten throat (water, loquat cream, etc. ), and don't let the throat be too dry to protect the throat mucosa. You don't need to drink too much water every time, as long as you drink a little water many times, you can prevent vocal cord inflammation.
Xiong Education: Department of Medicine, National Defense Medical College Experience: Attending physician, Radiation Oncology Department, General Hospital of the Three Armies, Visiting scientist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas, USA Currently: Director, Radiation Oncology Department, Yadong Memorial Hospital, Chairman of Anti-cancer Education Foundation, and legal person of consortium.
Liao Liren: Bachelor of Medicine from National Taiwan University, Master of Preventive Medicine from National Taiwan University School of Public Health. Experience: Expert of Taiwan Province Head and Neck Oncology Medical Association. Currently, he is the attending surgeon of otolaryngology head and neck in Yadong Memorial Hospital and concurrently the attending physician of otolaryngology department of National Taiwan University Hospital.