My Medical Skills Give Me Experience Points

Excessive obesity can easily cause a variety of diseases, and her thyroid dysfunction is likely related to obesity.

From a medical perspective, there are four causes of reduced thyroid function. The first cause is inflammation and infection, including bacterial infection and autoimmune diseases. The second is tumors. The third cause is trauma, including thyroidectomy and isotope radiotherapy, and even nasopharyngeal cancer radiotherapy can damage the thyroid, resulting in reduced thyroid function. The last cause is the well-known insufficient intake of iodine.

Adding iodine to salt is to solve the problem of insufficient iodine intake, to prevent the occurrence of goiter.

This female patient's lifestyle and diet are poor, and combined with obesity, she is also prone to insufficient intake and absorption of iodine.

If she does not control her weight to a reasonable normal level, long-term overloading of organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys, serious pathologies can easily arise.

Director Zhang's treatment plan for her is to gradually supplement thyroid hormones, to correct the issue of low thyroid function. Then, the patient is required to lose weight.

These are all proven treatments.

Zhou Can watched as the obese patient left, hoping that after taking the medication, her sleep apnea syndrome would be cured.

Soon after, the patient who had a minor cold for two years came back after the examination.

Under normal circumstances, it takes three to seven days for the results of a pathology examination to come out.

For example, tumor tissue requires immunohistochemical testing or molecular pathology level testing, which needs about a week.

If it's just an intraoperative pathology, a quick check can be done, and the results can be available in thirty minutes.

Intraoperative pathology usually refers to rapidly freezing the excised pathological tissue in a cryostat, making slides, and going through multiple processes such as staining and sealing, after which the pathologist examines and diagnoses the pathology under a microscope.

Unfortunately, this young female patient was found to have a mass on the left side of her throat.

Doctors at Xinxiang Women and Children's Hospital took upper and posterior pharyngeal side mass tissue for pathological examination, initially suspecting it was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Seeing this result, Director Zhang's face became very solemn.

Although Zhou Can had anticipated this, he couldn't help feeling somber and deeply lamented for the young female patient.

"Dr. Zhou, now that the test results are out, it is a tumor in the throat. And it's lymphoma—what should we do?" Director Zhang Bihua knows how to handle this, but she feels sorrow for the young female patient.

With her diagnostic experience, she is very concerned that the patient's tumor may have metastasized.

In fact, tumor metastasis is usually divided into three methods.

The first is infiltration into adjacent tissues, which is relatively the easiest to control. If detected in time and all affected tissues are removed and followed up with chemotherapy to consolidate treatment, satisfactory therapeutic effects can often be achieved.

The second method is tumor cell migration through the bloodstream. This is more troublesome since a single tumor cell must take root in another location and proliferate wildly, growing into a new tumor. This has to overcome the body's multiple immune defenses.

It's like a bandit running to a strange place, wanting to develop into a power, the success rate is actually not high.

Without familiarity with the environment, they might be wiped out by the local authorities or organizations.

Tumor cells migrating through the bloodstream to a new location and successfully taking root, then developing into a second tumor, takes time.

With modern medical examination methods, combined with experienced clinicians for diagnosis, it's relatively easy to detect.

Just remove both the primary lesion and the metastatic lesions and then perform radiotherapy, and it is also possible to achieve better treatment results.

The third type of tumor metastasis and spread is through the lymphatic system. Since the body's lymphatic tissue is an important immune organ, once it is conquered by tumor cells, it's akin to the authorities being infiltrated and controlled by bandits.

One can imagine how serious the consequences are.

To describe it, it's complete lawlessness.

Therefore, once a lymphoma is found to be malignant, the prognosis is often not good.

The girl's mother learned that her daughter had lymphoma, and seeing the solemn expressions of the doctors, she nearly collapsed, gripping the edge of the table tightly, trembling slightly. Tears whirled in her eyes, her breathing became short, and her complexion turned pale.

"Doctor... please, you must save my daughter. Her father is struggling out there, all for the sake of giving our child a superior living environment. Now, if he finds out about this result, how can I explain it to him..."

The family's voice was choked, already mixed with tears.

She was only staying strong in front of her daughter, otherwise, she might have broken down in tears long ago.

"Don't panic for now. Currently, it's only an initial diagnosis. First of all, lymphoma is not necessarily malignant. Secondly, even if it is malignant, it can be surgically removed. Right now, the key is to further clarify the pathological nature, and then check for any spread."

Director Zhang Bihua was comforting the family member.

She looked again at Zhou Can, "Dr. Zhou, I know you've performed surgeries in multiple surgical departments and have a lot of experience. In your opinion, which areas should we focus on for further examination?"

Director Zhang's humility in asking reflects the specialized expertise in different fields.

She performs more surgeries in obstetrics, but fewer in tumor surgeries.

Generally, when encountering tumor patients, they are usually handled by the corresponding specialists.

For instance, breast tumors are generally treated by the thyroid and breast surgeons. Cervical tumors, ovarian tumors, and the like are more commonly dealt with by obstetrics and gynecology.