Chapter 180 Is the cause of pulmonary nodules pneumonia virus?
The conclusion that pulmonary nodules have increased in recent years is somewhat familiar to Zhang Yang.
If you think about it carefully, Feng Gang seemed to have made similar remarks to himself before when he was diagnosed with pulmonary nodules.
The incidence rate of lung cancer in China has continued to increase in recent years. This is indeed the first time that Zhang Yang has heard of the increase in lung adenocarcinoma from 40% to 50%.
However,
He soon realized that the professional term "the incidence rate of lung adenocarcinoma is 40%" was not completely unfamiliar to him!
The latest simulation plot completed in the simulator some time ago, didn't the task require you to count the incidence rates of lung adenocarcinoma between "East Asians" and "Western Europeans"?
The year of statistics in the simulation plot is 2018. At that time, the incidence of "lung adenocarcinoma" in East Asians among lung cancers was indeed 40%!
In just a few years, it has increased from 40% to 50%. This growth rate is indeed very fast.
Thinking of this, Zhang Yang suddenly became interested and said curiously:
"Director Dai, the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma has increased so rapidly in recent years. What do you think is the reason?"
Director Dai thought for a moment and shook his head:
"Say To be honest, I don’t know, but..."
As he spoke, he paused slightly and looked at Zhang Yang:
"Mr. Zhang, you should be familiar with the four types of lung cancer, right? ?”
"Lung adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, large cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer. Each type of lung cancer has a main cause."
"For example, squamous cell carcinoma, most patients with squamous cell carcinoma have It's because of smoking. In other words, most lung cancers caused by smoking are squamous cell carcinomas. "
"Although the main cause of small cell lung cancer and large cell lung cancer is smoking, a large number of patients develop the disease. It is caused by genes, family inheritance and long-term exposure to toxic substances. Induced lung cancer. ”
“Lung adenocarcinoma is basically the same, but in addition to smoking and other causes, the most important cause of lung adenocarcinoma is chronic inflammation of the lungs, commonly known as pneumonia. ”
< br>“For example, various pneumonia viruses, tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc. may cause repeated damage and repair of lung tissue. In the process of continuous cell damage, the genes of lung cells may mutate, which in turn causes lung disease. Adenocarcinoma.”
"So I'm wondering if the reason why the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma has increased so much is possibly caused by the persistent pneumonia virus?"
Zhang Yang was slightly startled and said in surprise:
" Pneumonia virus?”
“Yes.”
Director Dai nodded again and continued to explain:
"To be precise, I wonder if the pneumonia virus caused a large number of pulmonary nodules. You know, pulmonary nodules are early lung cancer in a sense."
"It's just that some Pulmonary nodules are benign, and some are malignant, but once pulmonary nodules appear on a large scale, some of them will inevitably lead to lung cancer.”
"So, I think it is possible that the pneumonia virus induced pulmonary nodules. After several years of development, part of the pulmonary nodules deteriorated and turned into lung adenocarcinoma!"
"In this case, it can explain the past two years. Why have the number of patients with lung nodules increased significantly, and the number of patients with lung adenocarcinoma has also increased by 10%?”
After hearing the end, Zhang Yang looked surprised.
He had been hearing that more and more people had been found to have pulmonary nodules in recent years, but he had never thought about the possibility that the pneumonia virus was the cause.
Director Dai’s conclusion is a bit surprising to be honest.
At this moment, Director Dai continued:
“Of course, this is just my personal conjecture, and there is no scientific basis to support it!”
Zhang Yang nodded. , but soon he frowned and suddenly asked:
"Director, if it is the pneumonia virus that causes the increase in the incidence of 'lung adenocarcinoma', then the incidence of 'lung adenocarcinoma' should have increased in all regions of the world!"
"You have data from Europe? For example, are there Nordic people? ”
< br>Director Dai’s eyes suddenly lit up:
“Zhang Yang, you are right! You reminded me!”
“Although I don’t have the data, I can check it now, wait. Wait, I’ll check it now.”
After speaking, Director Dai hurriedly took out his mobile phone and started searching for relevant literature.
A few minutes later, he actually found a report on the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma in the Nordic population last year!
42%!
Zhang Yang frowned for a moment. He remembered that the incidence rate of the Nordic population in the simulator in 2018 was 40%. Although 42% was indeed 2% higher than 40%,
but it was very Obviously, the 2% increase in the Nordic population is not the same as the 10% increase in the East Asian population!
In other words...
“Isn’t it the pneumonia virus that has caused the high incidence of lung adenocarcinoma in China in recent years?”
“In other words, the pneumonia virus does not increase the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma. The main reason for the rate? "
Director Dai also frowned. If it is this data, then his conjecture is obviously untenable.
At this moment, Zhang Yang continued to speak:
"Director, I don't think it's time to draw conclusions. We might as well look at the data from other regions in Europe and the United States."
"Let's see if there is an increase in the incidence of other 'lung adenocarcinomas' and various lung cancers." Rate.”
“Okay!”
Director Dai’s expression gradually became serious, and he quickly searched for foreign literature through the APP.
After a simple search, no accurate data on the incidence rate of "lung adenocarcinoma" in the United States and other parts of Europe in the past two years was found.
Director Dai suddenly felt a little disappointed and had to put away his phone!
"Mr. Zhang, it is not very convenient to search on mobile phone, but yours reminded me of a new idea."
"I have to go back and use professional software on my computer to search for updates. There are many documents and materials, and the results can only be analyzed after sorting out the data!"
"Okay!"
Zhang Yang nodded, and he also knew that there was no need to be too anxious about this matter.
"But director, you must tell me if you have new conclusions after sorting out the data. I am also very interested."
"Well, okay."
At this point, the two of them The topic about the rapid increase in the incidence of lung nodules and "lung adenocarcinoma" in lung cancer ended here, but Zhang Yang remembered it in his heart.
After chatting for a while, the night was getting darker. After Zhang Yang personally sent Director Dai back to the hotel, he also returned home.
Lying in bed, he suddenly became very interested in the simulator's last "biological laboratory" simulation plot.
To be honest, he had not paid attention to the incidence rate of "lung adenocarcinoma" that he had calculated in the plot before. He was just doing the mission to simulate the plot.
But now it seems that the patient data in the "Biological Laboratory" simulation plot should be real, and even...he thought of a possibility.
Is it possible to simulate the "Adlev" biological laboratory in Norway mentioned in the plot, the laboratory leader Dr. Eric, and his partners in the laboratory? Evans also exists in the real world?
Thinking about it, Zhang Yang fell into a drowsy sleep without knowing it.
After a good night's sleep, Zhang Yang came to the company early the next morning.
All kinds of thoughts and doubts that he had before going to bed last night came to mind again, and he immediately began to inquire for the first time about the Norwegian "Adlev" biological laboratory mentioned in the simulation plot.
Not long after,
it was just as he thought. As expected, there was a biological laboratory called "Adlev" in Norway, far away in northern Europe, and the person in charge of the laboratory also It's really Dr. Eric mentioned in the simulator.
He even found out the information about Evans, who he communicated with the most in the plot.
"This is really amazing!"
Zhang Yang was absolutely sure that the plot of the simulator was not fabricated, and should have been taken from what happened in the real world in 2018.
Thinking of this, he suddenly looked forward to the subsequent simulation plot even more.
Since the "Biological Laboratory" plot in the simulator takes place in 2018, will the next plot take place in 2019?
Also, the simulation plot has completed the statistics of "lung adenocarcinoma", so what is the next plot?
Could it be that targeted drugs to treat "lung adenocarcinoma" are being developed in a biological laboratory?
Strong curiosity arose in Zhang Yang's heart. He simply turned on the computer and began to carefully understand the various targeted drugs currently used to treat lung cancer. This could be considered as preparing for the next stage of the plot in advance and taking precautions.
What are targeted drugs?
As we all know, the "nano nodule imaging agent" currently undergoing clinical trials by Tsingshan Pharmaceutical can only be regarded as a detection agent, which can effectively detect whether the pulmonary nodules are benign or malignant, thereby determining whether surgery is needed.
What about those patients who did not discover lung nodules immediately and were not diagnosed with lung cancer until symptoms appeared in their bodies? Then targeted drugs are needed.
The treatment plan for lung cancer is generally divided into several stages.
The first stage is carcinoma in situ.
For example, Director Feng Gang and Feng performed surgery immediately after discovering a pulmonary nodule. Although the final result was a benign nodule, even the malignant nodule was at best carcinoma in situ.
Carcinoma in situ generally requires removal of lung tissue with a radius of 2-4cm for lesions smaller than 1CM, and slightly more for deep locations.
After surgical resection, you can be discharged from the hospital in just a few days. There is no need to take medicine or chemotherapy. At most, you will have a follow-up visit after half a year. Clinically, it can be called a complete cure.
The second stage is "micro-infiltration", just like Zhang Lao's solid nodule.
Although it has not spread to other organs and tissues at this time, the tissues near the cancer cells have been affected and invaded.
Compared with carcinoma in situ, surgery requires the removal of larger and more lung tissue. For nodules larger than 2cm, it is even possible to remove the entire lung lobes.
The purpose is to fear that cancer cells will spread to other surrounding lung tissues and relapse without clean removal.
Of course, generally "micro-invasive" tumors less than 1cm do not require medication or chemotherapy after surgery. If you are lucky, if the surgery is clean, it will not recur like carcinoma in situ and achieve clinical cure.
But in the third stage of "invasive cancer", chemotherapy must be performed and targeted drugs must be taken.
Because at this time, the cancer cells have spread to almost the entire lung tissue, lymph nodes, and even other organs
At this time, surgery can no longer solve the problem, so we can’t cut out the entire lungs, right? ?
So,
At this time, chemotherapy is needed to quickly eliminate a large number of cancer cells in the body, inhibit the development of cancer cells, and at the same time shrink the tumor lesions and control the disease.
This process can be understood as a unified killing of large areas regardless of friend or foe. Normal cells and cancer cells will be quickly eliminated under the action of chemotherapy.
But chemotherapy has extremely side effects. After a large number of cancer cells are eliminated in the body, chemotherapy cannot be used for a long time. Otherwise, it is not known whether the normal cells or the cancer cells will die first.
At this time, targeted drugs need to be taken to accurately attack the remaining cancer cells.
The trouble is,
Cancer cells are actually new cells produced after gene mutations of normal cells. They are completely different from traditional viruses such as hepatitis B virus in their mechanisms of action and reproduction methods. .
Therefore, traditional drugs to eliminate viruses have no effect on cancer cells. We can only use a new treatment method to solve cancer cells through the cells' unique gene targets.
This is also the reason why it is called targeted drugs.
Therefore, for any treatment plan, once a patient needs to take targeted drugs, a genetic test must be performed as soon as possible to determine which gene mutation and target point are the cancer cells in the body, so as to select the needed ones. Which matching targeted drug to take.
But after selecting a targeted drug, not all cancer cells can be eliminated once and for all.
Due to its unique mechanism, targeted drugs cannot completely eliminate all cancer cells. They can only try to control the number of cancer cells and inhibit their rapid replication.
In other words, targeted drugs need to be taken long-term.
Zhang Yang quickly checked the various targeted drugs currently on the market for the treatment of lung cancer.
Targeted drugs are divided into first, second and third generations.
At present, domestic pharmaceutical companies have made little progress in targeted drugs for lung cancer. Major hospitals mainly use the first-generation targeted drugs produced by the British company "AstraZeneca" and the Swedish "Roche Group" .
They are: "Gefitinib" and "Erlotinib".
Gradually, Zhang Yang moved from the first generation of targeted drugs to the second and third generation.
I have to say something briefly here.
Because cancer cells have a strong ability to evolve themselves, drug resistance often develops after taking targeted drugs for a period of time.
If you want to continue to control cancer cells in the body at this time, you must replace it with new targeted drugs. This is why second and third generation targeted drugs have emerged!
Not only are their treatment effects better than the first generation, they have fewer side effects, and most importantly, they can avoid drug resistance more effectively.
Of course,
Good means more expensive. For example, the first-generation imported "gefitinib" is about more than 2,000 yuan per box, while the third-generation one can even cost more than 10,000 yuan.
Therefore, many cancer patients often experience eating from one generation to three generations.
And if the third generation becomes resistant and the cancer cells mutate, there will be no new targeted drugs to take, which means the end of life.
Zhang Yang carefully understood each targeted drug, but when he saw the third-generation targeted drug "Osimertinib", he was suddenly stunned.
Osimertinib is the third-generation targeted drug developed by the British company "AstraZeneca". From the detailed research and development information, he noticed a familiar name:
Norway's "Adlev" Biotech laboratory.
“Huh?”
“I didn’t expect that ‘Adelev’ Biolab has a cooperative relationship with AstraZeneca?”
“This product has only been launched not long ago. The new targeted drug 'Osimertinib' was actually developed in cooperation with the 'Adelev' laboratory? ”
"No wonder the simulator plot is in the 'Adelev' Biological Laboratory'..."
(End of this chapter)