Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1381 - 1046: Treating a Dead Horse as if It Were Alive

Chapter 1381: Chapter 1046: Treating a Dead Horse as if It Were Alive

According to Sisi’s current illness, it is no longer feasible for her to attend school normally. Yang Ping had a long talk with Sisi’s parents, hoping that Sisi could take a break from school to undergo hospital treatment.

Although no suitable treatment plan has been found yet, hospitalization allows for symptomatic treatment and monitoring of the illness progression, and timely rescue is possible in case of life-threatening situations.

In medical treatment plans, there can be etiological treatment and symptomatic treatment; etiological treatment targets the cause of the disease, while symptomatic treatment targets the symptoms—a simple understanding of the difference between treating the root and treating the symptoms.

Unfortunately, most of our current treatment plans for diseases are symptomatic treatments, with only a very few diseases being treated etiologically.

That means most diseases cannot be cured completely; only a very few can be completely cured, and those that seem curable are actually recovering through the body’s own immune system, with medicine just playing a supportive role.

The most successful etiological treatment is for bacterial infections. Before the advent of penicillin, the mortality rate from bacterial infections was astonishing, and any infectious disease could be fatal. Since the emergence of antibiotics like penicillin, bacterial infections can be said to have been conquered by humans.

Antibiotics target the disease-causing bacteria for treatment, eliminating the bacteria, so once the bacteria are eradicated, the disease naturally recovers.

Thus, diseases that can be completely cured are few and far between, while diseases that are merely symptomatically treated abound. The most common diseases humans encounter are acute upper respiratory infections, commonly known as "colds," with most colds being viral infections. Currently, except for very few viruses for which effective antiviral drugs exist, most viruses have no effective antiviral drugs.

In fact, all the medicines and methods modern medicine uses to treat colds are only to alleviate the symptoms brought by the illness and cannot alter the course of the disease itself; they merely make the patient feel more comfortable during the illness. The recovery from a cold entirely depends on the body’s own immune capacity, having nothing to do with the cold medicine. Even many medications only serve a placebo effect, having no substantial effect.

For example, high blood pressure and diabetes, etc., are treated symptomatically, using medications to control blood pressure and blood sugar, but they cannot eliminate the causes leading to abnormal blood pressure and blood sugar. Even why blood pressure and blood sugar become abnormal, the mechanisms are not very clear.

The first time Sisi was hospitalized, it was Professor Zhang Zongshun who admitted her, so Professor Zhang has always been concerned about her condition, coming over to chat with Yang Ping from time to time to learn about her situation. Professor Zhang heard that Sisi’s condition had worsened, with the tumor having metastasized throughout the body, and metastatic tumors had also been found in the brainstem, showing diffuse growth, so Old Zhang was very worried about Sisi.

Professor Zhang is already over eighty years old, and one might say he has seen through many things, having long passed the age of being emotionally affected by material things.

In Yang Ping’s office, he stared at the MRI images of Sisi for a long time, and after a long period of thought, he said, "It can’t be cut now, right?"

"It’s not feasible. Tumors in the lungs, liver, and peritoneum can be excised, but excising just these tumors is meaningless, purely surgery for the sake of surgery. The key issue is the metastatic tumor in the brain. If we can’t deal with the brain, treating other parts is pointless and just inflicts unnecessary cuts, which is counterproductive," Yang Ping spoke straightforwardly to Professor Zhang.

"This tumor location is troublesome. What will happen if it continues to develop?" Although Professor Zhang knew the consequences, he still asked.

Pointing to the brain tumor on the image using a pencil, Yang Ping said, "Whether it’s the tumor rupturing and bleeding, the impending compression, or the damage to brain cells, once it passes the critical point, the consequences will be cessation of breathing and heartbeat, with no chance for rescue."

"It’s tough!"

"That’s why I have her hospitalized now. If this child wasn’t in the hospital, who knows, she might not make it one day."

"We’ve gone in circles and eventually haven’t bypassed it."

"Yeah."

"Is there no new drug in the field of targeted therapy for this kind of tumor? Internationally?"

Professor Zhang, being an old expert in orthopedics, also has a certain reserve of knowledge about tumors, and he still keeps up with reading the latest literature daily, but his grasp of the latest knowledge definitely cannot compare to younger people.

Actually, targeted therapy drugs are now developing well; some tumors can be controlled just through targeted therapy, and a few can be cured entirely through it.

Yang Ping shook his head, "For this tumor, there aren’t any effective targeted therapy drugs yet; currently, several clinical targeted therapy drugs are not effective, just slightly better than nothing."

"What about CAR-T cell therapy? Any progress in that area?" Professor Zhang, relentless, insisted on asking thoroughly.

CAR-T cell therapy, costing one million two hundred thousand per injection, can cure non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, achieving the objective of completely eradicating tumor cells.room. This effect in tumor treatment could be described as stunning.

"The excellent effects of CAR-T cell therapy remain only in the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; there are no effective plans yet for treating other tumors," Yang Ping denied again.

"Immunotherapy? Biological therapy? Isn’t there a viable option?" Professor Zhang raised his voice.

Yang Ping still shook his head, indicating that if there were a way, they wouldn’t be sitting here talking for so long; they would get straight to the point.