As a rule, doctors manage to detect the causative factor of the onset and development of any disease according to symptoms. Meanwhile, the signs of pathology sometimes deliver no less suffering to the patient than the main ailment. Symptomatic treatment is a complex of measures that affect precisely such manifestations.
When is symptomatic therapy used?
The most common examples of such therapy are the administration of pain medication, antipyretic and expectorant drugs. Symptomatic treatment can be independent (for example, in the treatment of cough) or be part of a set of therapeutic measures (with severe clinical pictures of oncological pathologies). In one case or another, it has characteristic features that need to be considered in more detail.
How to treat a cough symptomatically?
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 this manifestation. Having determined the etiology of the symptom 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 determining 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 falls 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 onset of symptomatic treatment is the prescription of drugs that dilute sputum and facilitate its rapid excretion from the bronchi or lungs. A wet productive cough is often quite difficult to cure 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 triggered by an infection.
Antibiotics are resorted to in rarer cases. 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 at the first stage of the disease. Anti-inflammatory and cough-stopping drugs or mucolytic agents are prescribed to the patient. The causes of dry cough can be an allergic reaction. In any case, the doctor should prescribe therapy.
The goals of symptomatic therapy for cough, acute respiratory viral infections and oncology
Symptomatic treatment of influenza and SARS often has a great chance of complications. Taking medications that stop the symptoms does not give a deep result and a chance for a full recovery. Cough, runny nose, fever - these are signs of a respiratory or viral disease, which can only be removed with the help of complex treatment, which is based on antiviral drugs and antibiotics.
If the symptomatic treatment of cough is aimed at complete recovery, then this option for cancer therapy has a completely different goal. The need for this type of treatment in patients with cancer does not depend on the course of the disease and its stage. For example, at the initial stage of the disease, when the tumor is already detected in the body, but does not manifest itself in any way, the patient may become depressed or suffer from psychoemotional disorders.
The indicated condition is a symptom, which means that it needs to be corrected in the treatment regimen.
The benefits of symptomatic treatment for cancer
With the radical removal of cancer, symptomatic therapy is also necessary, since any interventions in the body are fraught with the most unforeseen responses. At the stage of postoperative recovery with weakened immunity, rehabilitation of the vital functions of the whole organism is necessary.
Symptomatic treatment of cancer patients poses the following tasks:
- correction and weakening of severely tolerated manifestations of a malignant tumor;
- increasing the patient's life expectancy and improving its quality.
The only and main method of therapy is the symptomatic course for cancer patients in the fourth stage of cancer.
What is the symptomatic therapy for malignant tumors?
Symptomatic treatment can be of two types:
- Surgical It is also called non-specific; it is used when an increase in the size of the malignant neoplasm provokes bleeding, acts on the blood vessels, preventing full circulation and causes stenosis of the organs of any of the systems: digestive, genitourinary, respiratory.
- Medication. What symptomatic treatment means can be understood by the complex of procedures (course of radiation and chemotherapy, rehabilitation of the formation, cytostatic therapy) and the prescriptions of the 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 have enough reasons, since it can significantly affect the further course of antitumor therapy.
The diagnosis and prognosis for the prospect of recovery here play a decisive role.
Indications for the appointment of symptomatic treatment
The maximum reduction in discomfort and pain is the main goal of the symptomatic treatment of cancer patients. However, it should be understood that the effect of medicines on other organs and systems entails serious consequences. Intensive therapy and incredible volumes of potent drugs are an unthinkable burden on the body. To understand what symptomatic treatment for oncology means, you can proceed from 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;
- metabolic disorders;
- renal or liver failure;
- neurosis, hysteria.
Manifestations of cancer in the last stages
At the third and fourth stages of cancer, with complex forms of the pathology, doctors often resort to surgery and complete removal of the tumor.
In the early stages, surgery is also possible in the case when a malignant neoplasm has a significant effect on the life of the patient, and sparing drug therapy does not give any result.
At the last stages of oncology, symptomatic treatment is prescribed, as a rule, due to the presence of such manifestations:
- Intolerable pain syndrome (persistent, persistent, unaffected by traditional painkillers). In the last stages, the pain increases, since often its source is not the tumor itself, but an organ that cannot be removed.
- Vomiting and ongoing nausea are standard signs of a cancerous process in the body. In the first stages of the disease, they arise due to radiation and chemotherapy, and in the last - 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 acute respiratory viral infection or respiratory illness and much later as a symptom of oncology. Basically, a characteristic increase in body temperature is with bone sarcoma and liver metastases.
- Defecation disorders. Problems with stools usually occur with tumors of the digestive system.
Symptomatic Surgical Treatment
Regardless of the country in which the symptomatic treatment of cancer patients is applied, its regimens will be almost identical, differing only by the method of surgical or drug exposure.
Surgery is recommended to the patient if his result will significantly affect the quality of life of the patient. With tumors of the intestine, stomach, pancreas, doctors use gastrostomy, colostomy and anastomoses.
Cancer exposure
Among the methods of symptomatic therapy, radiation is considered the most common. Radiotherapy is used both externally and internally, concentrating on the affected organ. The first option involves irradiating the entire area susceptible to malignancy. In the second situation, the therapeutic radiation dose is directed exactly to the tumor, acting on it as much as possible and practically harming 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 symptomatic treatment itself is not a threat to the patient’s health. Side effects of chemotherapy, for example, cannot be foreseen, however, most often they are caused by the individual characteristics of the body and its anaphylactic reaction to medications.
Despite all kinds of risks, chemotherapy generally has a positive effect on the condition of cancer patients, contributing to an increase in life expectancy.
Medication for Symptoms
Separately, it is worth highlighting a group of medications that are actively aimed at eliminating symptoms. To ease the torment and suffering of patients with oncology, they use the following drugs:
- 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 combat sudden temperature jumps);
- antibiotics (to prevent the development of inflammatory and infectious processes);
- hormonal (with tumors of the brain, thyroid gland).
What is the symptomatic treatment of cancer, it is easy to imagine on the example of the appointment of 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 end result of symptomatic therapy largely depends 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 the patient is no longer helped by relatively weak painkillers, 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 noted a pronounced narrowing of the pupils against the background of the use of opiates. In addition, not only narcotic drugs are dangerous. Analgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can cause erosion of the mucous membranes of the internal organs, hemorrhagic changes. Separately, it is worth considering the presence of an allergic reaction in a patient, which is not of a mass nature, but manifests itself exclusively in special cases.
What problems do oncologists face during treatment of patients?
Symptomatic treatment of cancer patients at complex stages of the disease, where the chances of recovery are almost nullified, is also associated with other difficulties. In particular:
- drugs are not prescribed for systematic administration;
- biased assessment of patients with the degree of pain intensity;
- standard dosages or too weak pain medication in an individual case;
- fear of drug addiction.
Not only patients, but also their relatives are often barriers for the doctor to fully realize his abilities.
An oncologist will not be able to help and alleviate the suffering of the patient if the following myths interfere with treatment:
- it is impossible to cure cancer;
- analgesic medications should be taken only in case of acute need;
- fear of developing drug dependence.
The 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.