How to treat esophageal cancer in the elderly

summary

Grandma is more than 70 years old this year. Her health is fairly good. She just couldn't eat anything a while ago. She looked thin. Later, she found out that she had esophageal cancer. After hearing this, she felt very afraid that grandma would leave us. So we need to know how to treat this esophageal cancer.

How to treat esophageal cancer in the elderly

First, surgical treatment: surgical resection is the first choice for the treatment of esophageal cancer. Surgical indications: ① stage 0, Ⅰ, Ⅱ a, Ⅱ B in UICC stage and T3N1M0 in Ⅲ stage; ② ineffective non-surgical treatment or recurrent pathology, no obvious signs of local invasion or distant metastasis; ③ the age is generally not more than 70 years old. The resection rate of early esophageal cancer was 100%, the operative mortality was 0-2.9%, and the 5-year survival rate was 86%.

Second, radiotherapy: because esophageal cancer is mainly squamous cell carcinoma, it is more sensitive to radiotherapy. The indication of radiotherapy is wider than that of surgery. The 5-year survival rate of radiotherapy was 4.3% - 17%. The most common reactions and complications were radiation esophagitis, tracheitis, esophageal perforation, esophago tracheal fistula and hemorrhage.

Third, chemotherapy: in addition to finding more early esophageal cancer in high incidence areas, most patients can not make early diagnosis. According to TNM staging standards, 70% of patients are in T3 or T4 stage and have lymph node metastasis, so the prognosis is poor. In the past, the risk of esophageal cancer was very small in more developed countries, while in other places, most of them already had esophageal cancer. The autopsy reports of those with short survival also support this point. In addition, some esophageal cancers show multiple origins, which is one of the reasons for the failure of surgery.

matters needing attention

The diet of the elderly after suffering from esophageal cancer must be paid attention to, according to the doctor's requirements, there is to eat more liquid food, not too much at a time, to achieve the principle of eating less and more meals, so as not to damage the esophagus.