What does it mean that cancer is defined as a chronic disease?

A few cancers heal themselves. The process of cancer onset is long, so attention should be paid to prevention and early detection. The treatment of cancer requires a protracted war. People keep calling for revealing the true face of cancer in order to form a correct understanding of cancer. the mystery of cancer is being revealed little by little, but this understanding is to replace the misunderstanding of the past and is called consensus. This is a fundamental change in the understanding of cancer. People have discussed what kind of disease to divide cancer into, and some experts tend to divide cancer into a single disease. WHO officially announced that cancer is a kind of chronic disease in 2006. How to understand that WHO defines tumor as a chronic disease? does it mean that clinicians have changed their principles of treatment? the cancer problem that people see is only the tip of the iceberg, and they do not see the occurrence and development of cancer. Since we have realized that the occurrence of cancer has a long process, we should pay attention to prevention, early detection and early treatment.

Common sense tells people: to deal with complex things, we must first have a correct or relatively correct understanding of the essential characteristics of the thing, in order to find a relatively effective solution, but also to achieve better results. Apart from that, all responses can only be said to be blind, even harmful.

Public opinions such as "cancer is incurable" and "cancer = death" are all wrong. in fact, a small number of cancers will heal themselves, and many patients can survive with cancer for a long time. Cancer has a long process, and attention should be paid to prevention and early detection. Therefore, a protracted war should be fought in the treatment of cancer.

In the past 20-30 years, represented by WH0, people have been calling for revealing the true face of cancer in order to form a correct understanding of cancer, and gradually become the consensus of the world. Happily, with the joint efforts of scientists from all over the world, the mysteries about cancer are being revealed little by little, and the correct understanding is becoming a reality step by step. However, it will take some time for this kind of understanding to replace the erroneous understanding of the past and be called consensus.

What does "chronic disease" mean? It means that the occurrence is slow, the development process is long, and the recovery is slow, so this is a fundamental change in the understanding of cancer. More than 30 years ago, people discussed what kind of disease to divide cancer into. At that time, some experts preferred to divide cancer into a single disease. However, after so many years of research, WHO officially announced in 2006 that cancer is a chronic disease.

How to understand that WHO defines tumor as a chronic disease? Does this mean that clinicians have changed their principles of treatment? Experts believe that this has two implications.

First, the occurrence of cancer is a long process. Figuratively speaking, the cancer problem that people see is only the tip of the iceberg, and there is a big one below. If we compare cancer to a scene, what we see is only the last scene, which is the end, and we do not see the occurrence and development of cancer. Now that it has been recognized that the occurrence of cancer has a long process, attention should be paid to prevention and early detection and early treatment. In this sense, to determine that cancer is only a chronic disease is to move the focus of clinical work forward. In fact, everyone thinks that cancer prevention and treatment must be moved forward in order to bear fruit. If we don't move forward and let the cancer develop to an advanced stage, we can only see the worst consequences. The pain of the patients and the hard work of the doctors also make everyone feel that cancer is a very difficult disease to treat.

The second is to find ways to turn clinically developed cancer into a chronic disease, slow the progression of cancer, inhibit cancer like diabetes and high blood pressure, and even enable patients to coexist peacefully with cancer for many years. At present, we have a lot of cancer patients, after treatment can be very good survival of cancer. The best example is chronic myeloid leukemia, which can survive for about 20 years.

Defining cancer as a chronic disease is conceptually active and active, leaving a lot of room for people's prevention and treatment. For example, lung cancer in cities is caused by pollution and smoking and is completely preventable. Anti-smoking activities in North America and Northern Europe have yielded results. But why do so many Chinese men smoke? Even our doctor smokes! This also needs to vigorously advocate and publicize smoking cessation from all aspects of society. We should treat smoking the same as drugs, not to pursue temporary "pleasure", but to cherish life. There is a view abroad that smokers should be required to pay more medical insurance premiums for future treatment.

Moreover, cancer is a chronic disease, and there is an important tendency that cancer can be cured or cured by itself. Its whole development process is often stop-and-go. Under some conditions, it can also return to normal.

It is hoped that friends suffering from cancer can look at cancer from a new perspective and treat it as a chronic disease, rather than an enemy who has to "kill".