Many people are either scared of cancer or think that cancer is far away from them, and the lack of medical knowledge may even lead people to cancer slowly.
The World Health Organization's Commission on Cancer has clearly pointed out that 2/3 of cancers can be prevented and cured, and the key is to detect them early through medical checkups.
With this, healthcare organizations around the world have been launching a variety of medical checkup services to meet people's needs. However, a few drops of blood can find out if you are suffering from cancer; cancer checking "artifacts" sweep once, early cancer immediately appeared ...... These various medical checkups range from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, making the public a bit puzzled.
Cancer checkup in the end how to check? What kind of cancer checkups do we usually do? What kind of cancer checkups can let you avoid "bad luck" as much as possible and stay safe and sound for a lifetime?
Checkup packages are hard to understand
In fact, more and more people are paying attention to the prevention of cancer. 53-year-old Ms. Tang has been thinking of having a special checkup for cancer prevention recently. Previously, one of her friends was found to be suffering from stomach cancer, which has reached an advanced stage, "His unit organizes a physical examination every year, and he still hasn't been detected, so it seems that he still needs to do a special anti-cancer physical examination."
To a number of hospitals to consult a circle, Ms. Tang instead hesitated: a variety of anti-cancer physical examination package price, the project is different, some hundreds of dollars, some nearly 10,000 yuan. There are dozens of items to check, which items are "hard goods", which are "road goods", can not understand.
A professional physical examination institutions "anti-tumor physical examination package", the price of 990 yuan, the online group purchase price of 480 yuan, check 26 projects, including 8 tumor markers screening. A hospital launched a cancer checkup package, the price of 1678 yuan, online group purchase price of 866 yuan, check more than 80 items, including four tumor markers screening.
Another hospital launched a high-end physical examination package, the price reached 11,000 yuan, checking about 50 items. The reporter found that the package of inspection items and other hospital packages are roughly the same, the most obvious difference is that it includes PET-CT examination, only this one cost about 8,000 yuan.
Cancer "magic weapon" everyone must do?
PET-CT is a high-end medical imaging diagnostic equipment, can achieve early detection of some functional changes in the body as well as the diagnosis of disease, therefore, in recent years has become a cancer checkup "new favorite", especially by the high-income class of the favor, despite the high price, but there are still a lot of people will see it as a cancer checkup "new favorite". Although it is expensive, there are still many people who regard it as a "magic weapon" for cancer checking and must "sweep it". Currently, PET-CT is a hotly recommended option in high-end medical checkup packages.
Doing a cancer checkup must not be less PET-CT? Oncologists believe that PET-CT as a "magic weapon" for cancer screening is actually misleading. Experts said that the real role of PET-CT is not to screen, but to diagnose the degree of tumor, such as a patient, to check whether the tumor is recurring or has metastasis in other parts.
In recent years, industry insiders have questioned whether using expensive PET-CT to screen normal people for tumors is not only a waste of resources, but also a risk of radiation and not a "catch-all" for all tumors. Liu Desen also believes that it is not necessary for the general public to choose this program in the cancer checkup.
With the improvement of medical technology, there are a lot of screening tools to choose from, such as ultrasound, painless endoscopy, low-dose CT screening, etc., which is inexpensive, with little radiation and good results, and combined with the examination of tumor markers, it can also play a role in preventing cancer.
Abnormal tumor markers must be a "hit"?
When it comes to "tumor markers", which is a major item in cancer checkups, the publicity of many medical checkup packages mentions that "a few drops of blood can detect nearly 10 kinds of cancers", which refers to the detection of tumor markers. The presence or change of such substances can indicate the nature of the tumor.
At present, almost all medical checkups include two basic tumor marker tests: alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), which are auxiliary diagnostic indexes for liver and digestive cancers, respectively. In the more high-end physical examination package, tumor markers have been increased to 13, many physical examination institutions have also launched a special "cancer prevention physical examination package".
On the website of a famous medical checkup organization, there are 6 tumor markers in 8 medical checkup packages, the male package with a price tag of 586 yuan and the female package with a price tag of 663 yuan are checked for two items of AFP and CEA; the male D package with a price tag of 1,641 yuan is checked for AFP, CEA, T-PSA (Total Prostate Antigen), F-PSA (Free Prostate Antigen); the male D package with a price tag of 1,936 yuan is checked for AFP, CEA, T-PSA (Total Prostate Antigen) and F-PSA (Free Prostate Antigen). ); Package D for women, priced at $1,936, checks for APF, CEA, CA125 (glycan antigen 125) and CA153 (glycan antigen 153).
However, these items are also a major "minefield" on the medical report. Whenever these tumor-related indicators are abnormal, they can scare people half to death.
Earlier this year, Ms. Xu's unit organized a physical examination, the results of the physical examination report will be abnormal items are marked out, one of which is clearly written "carcinoembryonic antigen", "no exaggeration, when I saw the report, my legs are weak. She felt that this indicator is problematic, then certainly cancer, but she did a round of tests did not find a problem.
According to medical experts, in general, tumor markers can only be used as indicators for tumor patients to monitor the development of their condition, treatment and recovery, and cannot be used as a standard for judging whether a person has cancer or not. Healthy people's serum will occasionally contain these markers, using them to do cancer screening, sensitivity and specificity is very low, and therefore often appear "false positive" results, so this general tumor detection program, often does not have much significance.
The vast majority of tumor markers known today exist not only in malignant tumors, but also in benign tumors, embryonic tissues, and even normal tissues. Therefore, the finding of elevated tumor markers alone cannot be used as a basis for tumor diagnosis. Consequently, performing these tests on healthy individuals does not reduce the risk of tumor death, but rather adds a lot of unnecessary worry and additional other tests. A clinician said bluntly, tumor markers used in a full set of healthy people screening, and the indiscriminate prescribing of drugs is no different, mostly from the "you know why".