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Tang Tianru, wife of former Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, recently shared her anti-cancer experience on her personal Weibo account. Tang Tianru was diagnosed with triple-negative malignant tumors in June last year.Breast cancerShe completed two surgeries and lymph node dissection at a public hospital in Beijing. After the surgery, the doctor recommended that she undergo an 8-stageChemotherapyandRadiation therapy, and emphasized that it is best to start within a month to achieve the best results. However, Tang Tianru finally decided not to accept Western medical treatment and turned to seek help from traditional Chinese medicine.

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With the continuous deepening of clinical research, neoadjuvant therapy,ImmunotherapyThe increasing use of emerging therapies such as HER2 and HER2 have provided more treatment options for triple-negative breast cancer. Triple-negative breast cancer is a difficult type of breast cancer to treat because it lacks commonly usedendocrineTherapeutic targets.

While accepting the doctor's advice, Tang Tianru also consulted with professional doctors. According to her description, if she did not receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, her survival period might only be 6 months; if she cooperated with the treatment, there was a 50% chance that she could live 6-24 months. In the end, she decided not to accept Western medicine treatment because "she didn't want to be weak and sitting in a wheelchair", and chose Chinese medicine conditioning instead.

A health blogger said on his Weibo that he admired Ms. Tang's anti-cancer story for sharing her experience, but he also pointed out some possible misunderstandings. He pointed out that Ms. Tang's statement that she was diagnosed with "stage 5 triple-negative breast cancer" may not be accurate, because breast cancer is divided into stages 0, I, II, III and IV, and the latest stage is stage IV, which means there is distant metastasis and surgery is usually incurable. Ms. Tang completed the surgery and lymph node dissection, which may mean that she is not in stage IV, but in the BI-RADS classification of category 5.Nodules, which is an imaging expression in breast cancer screening.

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The "Guidelines for Breast Cancer Screening for Chinese Women (2022 Edition)" recommends that ordinary women should start breast cancer screening at the age of 40. However, for high-risk women with a family history of breast cancer, it is recommended that the starting age for screening be set at the age of the youngest member of the family diagnosed with breast cancer minus 10 years, but not less than 25 years old.

Meta-analysis studied the clinical pathological characteristics and prognosis of triple-negative breast cancer in my country, pointing out that breast cancer screening for people under 35 years old with a family history of breast cancer and testing the expression status of the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA1 may help with the early detection and treatment of triple-negative breast cancer, thereby improving prognosis.

Xu Binghe pointed out in an interview that according to data from 2015, only 18.9% of adult women in my country had received breast cancer screening. However, between 2018 and 2019, the breast cancer screening coverage rate for women aged 35 to 64 increased to 30.9%.

Screening methods are also critical. International guidelines generally recommend mammography as the main means of breast cancer screening. Because Western women have looser breast tissue, mammography can better penetrate and detect nodules. However, the median age of breast cancer in Chinese women is 47 years old, when breast tissue is denser, and the penetration of mammography is reduced, which may miss small lumps. Xu Binghe warned that relying solely on mammography may result in 30% of patients being missed.

To improve the accuracy of screening, Xu Binghe's team recommends using different screening combinations based on the age of women. For women under 45, because their breast tissue is denser, they shouldUltrasonographyFor women over 45 years old, whose breast tissue is relatively loose, mammography should be the main examination, supplemented by ultrasound examination.

In addition, breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used as an important supplement to ultrasound and X-ray examinations, especially forGene mutationScreening of high-risk groups such as carriers.

refer to

1. Breast Cancer Expert Committee of the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology, et al. Expert consensus on diagnosis and treatment of young breast cancer in China (2022). Chinese Medical Journal. DOI:10.3760/cma.j.cn112137-20220907-01895

2. Breast Cancer Professional Committee of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, etc. Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines for Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in China (2024 Edition).TumorJournal. DOI:10.3760/cma.j.cn112152-20240118-00034