Lung cancer is so difficult to treat in the late stage, why are there so many people around 70 years old who spend huge sums of money on treatment?

Let me answer. My father died of lung cancer in 2009 at the age of 52. Tell me how I feel.

My father's symptoms at that time were coughing and vomiting blood, high fever and frequent fever. I went to the hospital for examination, and the doctor said it was basically terminal. Many people say it's a waste of money and my family is not rich. At that time, I was 28 years old, just graduated from college and worked soon. Maybe I felt panic and at a loss at the moment when I checked the results. There are four people in my family. My younger brother is young and my mother is sickly. My father has always been a mountain in my family since I was away from home. He bears the hope and happiness of the whole family. He is a mason. Maybe I was too late to understand, and I didn't feel my father's hard work when I went to school. I just think my father is so great. When I returned to work after the Spring Festival one year, I saw my father's old white hair. I told myself to work hard, make money and give him a good old age. At that time, he had symptoms of lung cancer, cough and fever. He didn't say anything for fear that we were worried. These are also what my mother said after my father died.

So when the hospital said it was lung cancer, I didn't want to believe it at that time, and I always thought it was a misdiagnosis. Later, several big hospitals also had the same result. At first, we didn't tell the truth, so we took him to the doctor and said it was emphysema. Just take some medicine. Only later did I know it was lung cancer. Everyone knows that it is disgraceful to talk about cancer, which costs the most. He is determined not to treat it. Our idea is that it is the greatest comfort to let his father live one more day anyway. Under our repeated persuasion, after two courses of chemotherapy, he basically stopped having a fever. He often loses his hair and kicks himself in the head. He feels much better. The doctor said it would be fine to do radiotherapy again. It seems that the light is just around the corner, followed by radiotherapy, with great side effects, sore throat and inability to eat. However, he persisted, and the chemotherapy was almost over in a few days. He accidentally fell down in the hospital, paralyzed and bedridden. Later, he was examined. The doctor said there was no therapeutic significance and he died soon after returning to China. At that time, I was heartbroken and felt that this cancer was too painful and terrible. I think, if this cancer disappears, I would rather be the last cancer patient in the world.

If time can be repeated, let me choose again. Be sure to go to a big hospital to check for metastasis. If there is no metastasis, it is better to go to the hospital for treatment if conditions are good. If it is well controlled in the early stage, the chance of recurrence is very small. If there really is an unfortunate turn for the better, let it be, improve the quality of life and try to live the rest of your life. I've written so much, it's been 10 years, and I've cried myself.

In the late 1970 s, a huge sum of money was spent to save four cancer cases.

1. Senior officials or retired cadres who earn more than 10,000 yuan in wages or retirement fees earn more. Medical reimbursement. There are fewer places to spend money and more places to save money. Suffering from terminal cancer, the family has money and is willing to spend huge sums of money to "save the patients". But not for long.

2. Private entrepreneurs, celebrities and stock holders, whose families have huge assets, are afraid that "money is in the bank and people are in heaven" and would rather spend huge sums of money to "buy their lives". They spent money like water in the hospital, but they didn't save their lives in the end. Donated huge assets to the hospital.

Families with many children are mostly working-class, with average income and little savings. However, in order to save the lives of the elderly, children expressed "filial piety", which not only spent years of limited savings, but also borrowed huge sums of money. Finally, it is also "draw water with a sieve." The money ran out and people left.

4, the family is poor, the children have filial piety, even if "selling iron", it is also "a drop in the bucket", which does not help. They are willing but unable to borrow huge sums of money, so they can only watch the patients give up.

All the families in these four situations have the same wish, and they can't bear to let the old man die, but the ending is the same. In the late stage of cancer, no matter how much money is invested, it is an "incurable disease" with no salvage value.

First of all, any treatment that can prolong the life of patients is meaningful.

Life is priceless, at least it should be respected. It does not mean that people around the age of 70 have the right to receive treatment as long as they are diagnosed with an incurable disease.

Back to the point.

It is a reality that lung cancer is basically cured in the late stage, but the failure to cure it does not mean that there is no way to control it. To what extent the treatment is worthwhile and how much it costs depends on the actual situation of the patient and the economic strength of the family.

First, the progress of treatment methods

In the past, when only radiotherapy and chemotherapy were used, advanced lung cancer was difficult, and the survival time was mostly around 1 year. In other words, it doesn't matter how much money you have in the late stage of lung cancer, because there is no better control method in medicine.

Great changes have taken place in the treatment of lung cancer in recent ten years.

Since the beginning of this century, new anti-tumor treatment methods represented by targeted therapy have come out, and there are more and more treatments for advanced lung cancer. Targeted drugs have the characteristics of small side effects, strong anti-tumor targeting and good effect, and they quickly blossom and bear fruit in the field of tumor treatment once they come out. Some advanced patients can survive for more than 5 years simply by taking targeted drugs orally, which was unimaginable in the past.

In recent years, immunotherapy drugs represented by PD- 1/L 1 monoclonal antibody have come out, and there are new treatments for advanced lung cancer. Clinical observation shows that once immunotherapy is effective, it often has a lasting effect and is expected to control tumors for a long time.

Second, the economic burden

In the past two years, with the country's efforts to increase drug price reduction negotiations, targeted drugs have gradually dropped from high-priced drugs to the acceptable range of ordinary people. So far, many drugs have been included in the medical insurance, and with the medical insurance negotiation that ended in mid-February, 2020, several domestic anti-tumor immune drugs have been greatly reduced in price and included in the medical insurance, and patients with advanced lung cancer have another realistic way to go.

In short, the treatment of advanced lung cancer is really difficult. First of all, it depends on whether there is a suitable method to control it, regardless of age. After all, life is above everything else. Then there is your own economic strength. Of course, if the family's economic conditions do not allow it, it is another matter.

My daughter-in-law has had cancer for seven or eight years. Breast cancer first, then lung cancer. I'm fine now, and my mental outlook is no different from that of normal people! Don't be afraid, face it positively and you will win!

I am engaged in cancer radiotherapy. In my fourth year of work, I gave radiotherapy to a 73-year-old patient with lung squamous cell carcinoma. At that time, his mediastinal lymph nodes metastasized and his neck supraclavicular lymph nodes metastasized. After radiotherapy, I am still alive. I came to review this week! I am eighty years old this year!

As a cancer front-line medical staff, I personally feel that according to the family's economic situation, we must first choose a reasonable treatment method and treat it first!

There is hope only after treatment!

Cancer is terrible, which is directly related to the society, natural environment, diet and fake and shoddy food in recent decades.

They are over 70 years old and have experienced all the hardships of life. It's time for them to enjoy happiness. If people in their 40 s and 50 s get this disease, they will accept it calmly. Life is as hard as pain! For some people in their forties and fifties, living is suffering!

It is easier to see through what people encounter when they are alive, but those who see through life and death rarely accept the reality, because life and death are important things for people. When people die, everything becomes the past, which is what people often say. Most old people are most afraid of death. Many old people are afraid of death after being seriously ill. Even if they have an incurable disease, they spare no effort and spend a lot of money in order to cure the disease and seize the hope of survival. Even if they live one more day, they are willing to undertake the economic and human efforts needed for hope. This is understandable, but it is not true. Rational people don't ask so much of people who see through life and death. Of course, it is beyond reproach to pursue the hope of life when conditions permit.

Now that living conditions are better, people in their seventies are not so old. Many people in their seventies are healthier than those in their fifties and sixties. As for the treatment, first of all, I think it is a person who must live. It is impossible for children to watch their parents die because of their own illness. And now there are also people who raise this and that, and some treatment fees can be obtained by using the platform. In a word, it is unreasonable to say that you are ill and not cured.