What you didn’t know about stomach cancer
Read the list of the signs and symptoms of stomach cancer.
Stomach cancer is difficult to detect and often not diagnosed until it’s more advanced. The stomach is a muscular, hollow, dilated part of the digestive system which functions as an important organ of the digestive tract of humans.
Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, is a cancer that starts in the stomach. It occurs when cells in the stomach change and start to grow quickly and in an uncontrolled fashion, and form a tumor. A malignant tumor is also known as cancer. Stomach cancer should not be confused with other cancers that can occur in the abdomen, like cancer of the colon, liver, pancreas, or small intestine, because these cancers may have different symptoms, different outlooks, and different treatments. Stomach cancers tend to develop slowly over many years. Before a true cancer develops, pre-cancerous changes often occur in the inner lining of the stomach. These early changes rarely cause symptoms and often go undetected.
While difficult to detect, treatment for stomach cancer is possible through chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery.
Cancers starting in different sections of the stomach may cause different symptoms and tend to have different outcomes. The cancer’s location can also affect the treatment options.
Signs and symptoms of stomach cancer may include:
• Fatigue
• Bloated feeling after eating
• Feeling full after eating little
• Heartburn
• Indigestion and stomach discomfort
• Nausea (which may be mild )
• Loss of appetite
• Sensation of food getting stuck in the throat with eating
• Stomach pain
• Vomiting, particularly vomiting up of solid food shortly after eating
• Weight loss
• Diarrhea or constipation
Treatment of stomach cancer:
Once a patient has been diagnosed with cancer and the stage thereof identified, there is a lot to think about before patient and doctors can choose a treatment plan.
The main treatments for stomach cancer are:
• Surgery
• Chemotherapy
• Targeted therapy
• Radiation therapy
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