As a rule, the causative factor of the occurrence and development of any disease, doctors can detect by symptoms. Meanwhile, the signs of pathology sometimes cause no less suffering to the patient than the main ailment. Symptomatic treatment is a set of measures that affect precisely such manifestations.
When is symptomatic therapy used?
The most common examples of such therapy are the prescription of painkillers, antipyretics and expectorants. Symptomatic treatment can be independent (for example, in the treatment of cough) or included in the complex of therapeutic measures (for severe clinical manifestations of oncological pathologies). In one case or another, it has characteristic features that need to be considered in more detail.
How to symptomatically treat a cough?
Symptomatic treatment of cough of various etiologies is traditional, since it is not a separate disease that occurs on its own. The main thing is to identify the underlying cause of thismanifestations. Having determined the etiology of the sign of the disease, the general practitioner will be able to prescribe a symptomatic treatment plan.
Further actions and recommendations of a specialist will be aimed at finding out the productivity of the symptom. As you know, this criterion determines the presence or absence of sputum. It is known that a wet cough appears when sputum descends into the respiratory organs. With colds, this is a common process.
What can be a cough and what is the nature of its origin?
The beginning of symptomatic treatment is the appointment of drugs that thin the sputum and contribute to its rapid removal from the bronchi or lungs. A wet productive cough is often difficult to treat without the use of anti-inflammatory drugs. In parallel with such drugs, antibiotics or antiviral agents are prescribed. They are especially needed when the cough was provoked by an infection.
Antibiotics are rarely used. When symptomatic therapy is ineffective and antiviral drugs do not work, antibiotics are prescribed to relieve inflammation.
Speaking of unproductive dry cough, it should be understood that it most often occurs in the first stage of the disease. The patient is prescribed anti-inflammatory and cough-stopping drugs or mucolytic agents. An allergic reaction can be the cause of a dry cough. In any case, therapy should be prescribed by a doctor.
Goals of symptomatic therapy for cough, SARS andoncology
Symptomatic treatment of influenza and SARS often has a high probability of complications. Taking medications that relieve symptoms does not give a deep result and a chance for a full recovery. Cough, runny nose, fever are signs of a respiratory or viral disease, which can only be cured with the help of complex treatment based on antiviral drugs and antibiotics.
If the symptomatic treatment of cough is aimed at a complete recovery, then this treatment option for oncological diseases has a completely different goal. The need for this type of treatment in cancer patients does not depend on the course of the disease and its stage. For example, at the initial stage of the disease, when the tumor has already been detected in the body, but does not manifest itself in any way, the patient may become depressed or suffer from psycho-emotional disorders.
This condition is a symptom, which means that the treatment regimen needs to be adjusted.
Benefits of symptomatic cancer treatment
With the radical removal of a cancer, symptomatic therapy is also necessary, since any intervention in the body is fraught with the most unforeseen responses. At the stage of postoperative recovery with weakened immunity, the rehabilitation of the vital functions of the whole organism is necessary.
Symptomatic treatment of cancer patients sets itself the following tasks:
- correction andreduction of severely tolerated manifestations of a malignant tumor;
- increasing patient life expectancy and improving its quality.
The symptomatic course becomes the only and main method of therapy for cancer patients in the fourth stage of cancer.
What is symptomatic therapy for malignant tumors?
Treatment for symptomatic treatment can be of two types:
- Surgical. It is also called non-specific; it is used when an increase in the size of a malignant neoplasm provokes bleeding, affects blood vessels, preventing proper blood circulation and causes stenosis of organs of any of the systems: digestive, genitourinary, respiratory.
- Medical. What does symptomatic treatment mean, you can understand by a set of procedures (a course of radiation and chemotherapy, rehabilitation of education, cytostatic therapy) and the appointment of appropriate drugs, thanks to which doctors manage to save the patient from severe pain, discomfort and stop the intense inflammatory process.
Meanwhile, most experts believe that the use of symptomatic treatment should be justified, since it can significantly affect the further course of antitumor therapy.
Diagnosis and prognosis for the prospect of recovery play a decisive role here.
Indications for symptomatic treatment
Maximum reduction of discomfort and pain is the main goal of the symptomatic treatment of cancer patients. However, it should be understood that the impact of drugs on other organs and systems entails serious consequences. Intensive therapy and incredible volumes of potent drugs - an unimaginable burden on the body. You can understand what symptomatic treatment for oncology means based on the painful manifestations of the disease that patients often experience (at all stages of cancer):
- disorders of the gastrointestinal tract (diarrhea, constipation);
- rapid weight loss (anorexia, cachexia);
- vomiting and nausea;
- unbearable pain and dysfunction of the affected organ;
- violations of metabolic processes;
- kidney or liver failure;
- neuroses, tantrums.
Manifestations of cancer in the last stages
In the third and fourth stages of cancer with complex forms of the pathology, doctors often resort to surgical intervention and complete removal of the tumor.
In the early stages, surgery is also possible in the case when a malignant neoplasm has a significant impact on the patient's life, and sparing drug therapy does not give any result.
In the last stages of oncology, symptomatic treatment is prescribed, as a rule, due to the presence of such manifestations:
- Intolerable pain syndrome (unresolved, permanent, unresponsive to traditionalpainkillers). In the last stages, pain increases, because often its source is not the tumor itself, but an organ that cannot be removed.
- Vomiting and persistent nausea are standard signs of a cancerous process in the body. In the first stages of the disease, they occur due to radiation and chemotherapy, and in the latter - most often due to the germination of metastases in the brain, liver, and circulatory organs.
- High body temperature. Feverish patients often perceive the symptom as a sign of SARS or a respiratory disease, and much later as a symptom of oncology. Basically, an increase in body temperature is characteristic of bone sarcoma and liver metastases.
- Defecation disorders. Problems with the stool, as a rule, occur with tumors of the digestive system.
Symptomatic treatment by surgery
Regardless of the country in which the symptomatic treatment of cancer patients is used, its schemes will be almost identical, differing only in the method of surgical or drug exposure.
Surgical intervention is recommended to the patient if its result will significantly affect the patient's quality of life. For tumors of the intestines, stomach, pancreas, doctors use gastrostomies, colostomies and anastomoses.
Irradiation for cancerous tumors
Among the methods of symptomatic therapy, radiation is considered the most common. Radiotherapy is applied both externally,and internal, concentrating on the affected organ. The first option involves irradiating the entire area affected by malignancy. In the second situation, the therapeutic radiation dose is directed exactly to the tumor, having the maximum effect on it and practically without causing harm to other organs and systems with high toxicity. Radiotherapy allows you to stop the growth of cancer cells and the rate of progression of the disease, providing the patient with long-term pain relief.
Chemotherapy is an element of symptomatic treatment
It is also impossible to say with absolute certainty that the symptomatic treatment itself does not pose a threat to the he alth of the patient. Side effects of chemotherapy, for example, cannot be predicted, but most often they are caused by the individual characteristics of the body and its anaphylactic reaction to medications.
Despite all sorts of risks, chemotherapy generally has a positive effect on the condition of cancer patients, helping to increase life expectancy.
Treating symptoms with medication
Separately, it is worth highlighting a group of medications that are actively aimed at eliminating symptoms. To alleviate the pain and suffering of cancer patients, the following drugs are used:
- anesthetics (depending on the degree of pain and its intensity; can be narcotic and non-narcotic painkillers);
- antiemetic (to eliminate the corresponding symptom);
- antipyretic (to combatsudden temperature spikes);
- antibiotics (to prevent the development of inflammatory and infectious processes);
- hormonal (for tumors of the brain, thyroid gland).
What is the symptomatic treatment of cancer, it is easy to imagine the example of prescribing drugs that increase appetite in patients. After all, the problem of eating food in patients with oncology is the most common. At the same time, the effectiveness and final result of symptomatic therapy largely depend on how the patient eats.
Side effects of symptomatic cancer treatment
It is worth noting that the treatment of manifestations of cancer has its negative consequences. In the fourth stage of cancer, when relatively weak painkillers no longer help the patient, he is prescribed stronger drugs, which are characterized by such side effects:
- vomiting and nausea;
- weakness and drowsiness;
- loss of appetite;
- dizziness and hallucinations;
- constipation.
Patients have a pronounced constriction of the pupils on the background of the use of opiates. In addition, not only drugs are dangerous. Analgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can cause erosion of the mucous membranes of internal organs, hemorrhagic changes. Separately, it is worth considering the presence of an allergic reaction in a patient, which is not widespread, but manifests itself exclusively in special cases.
What problems do oncologists face during treatmentpatients?
Symptomatic treatment of cancer patients at complex stages of the disease, where the chances of recovery are practically reduced to zero, is also associated with other difficulties. Specifically:
- drugs not prescribed for systemic use;
- biased assessment by patients of the degree of pain intensity;
- standard dosages or too weak painkiller in individual case;
- fear of developing drug addiction.
Not only patients, but also their relatives are often obstacles for a doctor to fully realize his potential.
An oncologist will not be able to help and alleviate the suffering of a patient if the following myths interfere with treatment:
- cancer cannot be cured;
- analgesic drugs should be taken only when absolutely necessary;
- fear of drug addiction.
Psychological qualification assistance of medical staff in the oncology clinic will help to avoid such difficulties. The patient himself and his relatives need regular consultations that can correctly set up the family for symptomatic treatment.
