Understand what gastric cancer is

Gastric cancer is a common and highly prevalent malignant tumor of the digestive system. In my country, this disease ranks first among all tumors, causing great harm and impact on everyone's life and health. Gastric cancer is more common in middle-aged and elderly people over 50 years old and can occur in any part of the stomach. Let's take a closer look at what gastric cancer is and what causes it?

There are obvious regional differences in the incidence of gastric cancer. The incidence rate in the northwest and eastern coastal areas of my country is significantly higher than that in the southern region. The age of onset is over 50 years old, and the ratio of male to female incidence is 2:1. Due to changes in dietary structure, increased work pressure and Helicobacter pylori infection, gastric cancer tends to be younger.

1. Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection: The Hp infection rate among adults in high-incidence areas of gastric cancer in my country is over 60%. Helicobacter pylori can promote the conversion of nitrates into nitrites and nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Hp infection causes chronic inflammation of the gastric mucosa, and environmental pathogenic factors accelerate the excessive proliferation of mucosal epithelial cells, leading to aberration and carcinogenesis. The toxic products of Helicobacter pylori, CagA and VacA, may have a carcinogenic effect. The detection rate of anti-CagA antibodies in gastric cancer patients is significantly higher than that in the general population.

2. Precancerous lesions: Gastric diseases include gastric polyps, chronic atrophic gastritis, and residual stomach after partial gastrectomy. These lesions may be accompanied by varying degrees of chronic inflammatory processes, gastric mucosal intestinal metaplasia or atypical hyperplasia, and may turn into cancer. Precancerous lesions refer to pathological histological changes in the gastric mucosa that are prone to canceration. They are borderline pathological changes in the process of transformation from benign epithelial tissue to cancer. Dysplasia of the gastric mucosal epithelium is a precancerous lesion. It can be divided into three degrees: mild, moderate, and severe according to the degree of cell atypia. Severe dysplasia is sometimes difficult to distinguish from well-differentiated early gastric cancer.

3. Heredity and genes: Studies have shown that the incidence of gastric cancer in blood relatives of gastric cancer patients is 4 times higher than that in the control group. The carcinogenesis of gastric cancer is a multi-factor, multi-step, and multi-stage development process involving changes in oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, apoptosis-related genes, and metastasis-related genes, and the forms of gene changes are also diverse.

The prognosis of gastric cancer is related to the pathological stage, location, tissue type, biological behavior and treatment measures of gastric cancer. The prognosis of early gastric cancer is good after treatment. The prognosis of gastric cardia cancer and proximal gastric cancer in the upper 1/3 of the stomach is worse than that of gastric body and distal gastric cancer. Women have a better prognosis than men. The postoperative effect of gastric cancer patients over 60 years old is better, and the prognosis is very poor under 30 years old.

In fact, gastric cancer can be well prevented. In daily life, we must change bad eating habits, avoid overeating, irregular meals, avoid eating too fast, too hot, or too hard, eat less smoked and pickled food, and avoid high-salt diet. Drink less strong alcohol and don't smoke. Do a good job of preventing and removing mold from grains and protect the hygiene of drinking water.