SINGAPORE: To an onlooker, Alex would appear to be a fussy eater who prefers to have smaller, more frequent meals.
It is not a certainty that he will get diffuse gastric cancer, although he was told by doctors that if he has the mutation, there is an 80 per cent chance he will get the disease."When the result of the test came out positive, I was just kind of resigned to it. I mean, I knew it was coming," he said.
It proved to be the right decision. A biopsy on his stomach showed he already had early stage gastric cancer. Patients with early stomach cancers typically show very little symptoms or experience non-specific symptoms such as fatigue, bloating and indigestion, he added.Alex was back at work 10 weeks after his surgery, which included five days recuperating in Singapore General Hospital.
Without a stomach to act as a storage space, Alex can only either eat or drink at any one time - about two-thirds of a main course or 250ml of water. He also has to forgo the dairy-based desserts that he loves, he said. Others who should go include those who have “bilateral” cancers, meaning the disease occurs in both of a pair of organs - both ovaries or both kidneys - at the same time.
“It's very important before anyone who does genetic testing that they actually go for what we call a pre-test counselling session with one of our genetic counsellors,” she said
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Source: The Straits Times - 🏆 8. / 63 Read more »