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United Christian Hospital announced on Wednesday (January 16) it had surgically removed malignant tumors from the stomach or esophagus of 60 patients with a non-intrusive procedure using an endoscope instead of cutting the patient open in the past five years. Every one of them was able to eat the day after the surgery and was released from hospital another day later. None has relapsed so far.
About 5,000 new cases of these two types of cancer are diagnosed a year on average in Hong Kong and more than 60 percent of them perish despite conventional treatment.
Doctors say the success rate of stomach cancer (gastric carcinoma) treatment is very high these days if diagnosed early on. The sorry reality is that over 80 percent of patients tend to overlook the symptoms because they feel little or no discomfort at all in the upper stomach. And they urge people to take tests as soon as they feel consistent discomfort in the upper and/or mid-stomach and difficulty swallowing.
Mr. Wong Chau, 88, was diagnosed with stomach cancer at its early stage. He went for the endoscope procedure because his advanced age and health condition did not allow conventional surgery. “I had no idea it was an operation. I thought the doctor was just examining my stomach. It lasted about 50 minutes, and I felt no pain at all,” he said.
Dr. Lam Siu-hou, chief surgeon and director of the hospital’s endoscopic surgery training program, said stomach caner and esophagus cancer rank the fourth and eighth respectively on the list of most common cancers in Hong Kong, where about 1,500 new cases of these anomalies are diagnosed each year with stomach cancer accounting for two-thirds of the total and more than 60 percent of the patients die of the cancers.
He added his department had introduced the minimal intrusion surgery technique from Japan five years ago and performed it in 60 patients so far. The patients’ cancers measured 2cm in diameter on average and the operations took 40 minutes more or less, after which the patients needed only two days’ of observation before they were discharged. ■春生 資深翻譯員
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