16/10/2021
Early signs of stomach cancer
1. Early stage stomach cancer
Stomach cancer develops through 5 stages:
Stage 0 is also known as early stage (early stage). At this stage, new cancer cells are located in the lining of the stomach.
Stage 1: Cancer cells have penetrated into the second layer of the stomach, but there are still no obvious symptoms and have not spread to other organs.
Stage 2: When moving to stage 2, the cancer cells have moved through the mucosa and started to show some more obvious symptoms: abdominal pain, nausea....
Stage 3: Cancer cells have started to spread to other organs in the body.
Stage 4: The last stage of stomach cancer. At this point, cancer cells have spread throughout the body and there is almost no chance for a cure.
Early gastric cancer (or early stage) is the period when new cancer cells are still in the submucosa. Usually, the tumor size in this stage is usually very small, only a few mm to 7cm, so it does not affect the digestive activity of the stomach. Therefore, if you want to detect stomach cancer at an early stage, it is necessary to implement cancer screening programs.
2. Early signs of stomach cancer
In the early stages of stomach cancer, symptoms are not obvious and most are discovered when cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body. In case the patient has a history of stomach-related diseases, it is necessary to carefully examine the pathology periodically, to avoid a bad situation that turns into cancer.
However, patients need to pay attention to check their health as soon as they detect some of the following signs of stomach cancer:
Weight loss: This is one of the basic symptoms of stomach cancer. Weight loss occurs rapidly when the disease enters an advanced stage, even losing up to 15% of body weight in just 3 months.
Abdominal pain: Starting with intermittent pain, however, abdominal pain will become more severe when the patient enters the later stages of stomach cancer, even taking medicine does not relieve. .
Loss of appetite: A common symptom in stomach cancer patients, accompanied by difficulty swallowing, the feeling that food is always blocked in the throat.
Stomach bloating after eating: Patients often have a feeling of fullness, discomfort and nausea after eating.
Vomiting blood: When vomiting blood occurs frequently, we also need to consider the possibility of stomach cancer.
Black stools: Most of these symptoms will appear in people with stomach ulcers as a sign that the disease may have turned into cancer.
Basically, the symptoms of stomach cancer are similar to other stomach diseases, so patients often have subjective psychology, only going to the doctor when the disease is serious.
3. What to do to detect stomach cancer early?
For early detection of stomach cancer, the best way is to screen for esophageal and stomach cancer
Screening is performed for patients with no clinical symptoms. In some developed countries such as Japan, where stomach cancer is a common disease, extensive screening can help detect gastric cancer early.
Your doctor will give you some tests to check, such as: Gastroscopy, biopsy of suspected lesions, tests for tumor markers...
Diagnosing stomach cancer
Several tests are used in the definitive diagnosis and staging of stomach cancer. help make informed treatment decisions.
Gastrointestinal endoscopy: allows direct view of the area of interest. Your doctor will take a tissue sample (biopsy) to confirm the diagnosis. Endoscopy is important for detecting early-stage cancers that develop from the upper or lower lining of the digestive tract.
Biopsy
Doctors do biopsies during an upper endoscopy by taking a small tissue sample from an unusual-looking area of the stomach. Then another doctor looks at that tissue under a microscope. Once doctors have confirmed the diagnosis, further tests are performed to diagnose the stage
