If aggressive treatment can be pursued, enduring for half a year to a year, there is a great possibility.
"I don’t understand why when other people get a cold, they recover, but my daughter’s trivial cold turned into cancer?" The family member collapsed and asked Zhou Can for an answer.
"It’s possible that the lymphoma did not appear initially in your daughter. I reviewed her first hospital admission blood tests from two years ago, which indicated elevated liver enzymes, suggesting chronic hepatitis at that time. Other test results from that time corroborated an infection of the EB virus. Her lymphoma could be associated with the EB virus infection."
Zhou Can had organized and analyzed this patient’s records and entire course of illness. Google seaʀᴄh novelFɪre.net
He highly suspected that the lymphoma did not appear during the patient’s first hospitalization.
"What is the EB virus?"
She must have felt frustrated with life, even more eager to understand how her simple cold turned into a cancer that could take her life.
"EB virus is short for CAEBV virus, which refers to the herpes virus. You had a mild fever and elevated liver enzymes the first time because of this virus infection."
Zhou Can noticed that a female journalist was quickly jotting down notes in a small notebook.
However, he did not stop her.
"Why has this virus not been cured after two years of treatment? Was it because the expert’s medical skills were inadequate, or because this virus infection is inherently incurable?"
The family member gradually calmed down, also desperate to understand why her daughter’s cold transformed into advanced cancer over two years.
If it was due to that expert’s misdiagnosis and misjudgment, causing a delay in her daughter’s condition, she was determined to make that expert pay.
In such a public setting, Zhou Can was very cautious in addressing this sensitive issue.
Deputy Director Shi, beside him, was worried he might speak carelessly, and gently kicked him.
How could Zhou Can be someone who spoke without considering the consequences?
Especially with a journalist present.
"EV virus most imperils babies, children, and adolescents with prior respiratory diseases, and currently, there is no effective treatment or vaccine available. Clinically, antiviral drugs are often chosen to support treatment. The prescriptions from the external hospital expert during your initial hospitalization, aimed at liver protection and antiviral treatment, were appropriate."
Although Zhou Can internally cursed the external hospital expert as incompetent, costing the girl’s timely treatment, he verbally credited the expert.
He believed the external expert did his best.
However, treating EV virus infections inherently involves some uncertainties.
Poor treatment outcomes could also be linked to the patient’s lifestyle and immune capabilities.
Now that things had reached this point, the only way forward was to learn from the experience.
After all, in clinical medicine, countless lessons are practiced at the cost of human lives.
Regardless of Chinese or Western medicine, without extensive clinical validation, no achievements could be made, nor could progress be strengthened.
Western medicine’s dominance in the market within just over two hundred years, besides the Western world’s emergence as the most powerful and advanced, is also a testament to its therapeutic effects.
Overall, medical standards are constantly improving.
Previously, cardiac or respiratory arrest meant certain death, with no chance of luck.
However, in modern times, even if heartbeats or breathing stops suddenly, artificial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation can replace cardiopulmonary functions. Although ECMO cannot substitute permanently, it can support many patients through the most critical days, allowing them a chance to survive.
Every year, numerous patients are successfully resuscitated in the ICU.
Hence, some mistakes in clinical medicine are permissible.
But as modern medicine improves and clinical experience enriches, the likelihood of errors during diagnosis and treatment steadily decreases.
"Let me call the child’s father, he is working in Africa; I was entrusted with our daughter’s care, and now... oh..."
The female family member’s voice broke into sobs.
Learning her daughter was in the late stages of cancer felt like the sky had fallen.
"Xiao Ya, sit here for a while, Mom will call your dad to discuss what treatment to pursue next."
"Mom, don’t be too sad, I haven’t seen you smile since I became ill. I hope to see you happy. If one day I really leave this world, my biggest hope is for you and dad to live peacefully and happily."
The girl’s words turned Zhou Can’s head away.
This nineteen-year-old girl was too sensible.
And seemed to have a profound acceptance of life and death. She had remained remarkably calm since learning of her terminal illness.
Perhaps after enduring over two years of pain, she was longing for relief.
Zhou Can felt deeply saddened in this moment, cursing his limited medical skills that couldn’t cure the girl.
With current medical technology, not just him, but no hospital in the world could cure a stage IV lymphoma patient. The only treatment available was chemotherapy.
"If only there was a specific cure for cancer!"
Zhou Can inwardly cried out.
Yesterday, Yang Chan told him that she hoped he would make conquering cancer a goal of his struggle. At that time, he felt the goal was too ambitious and hard to achieve.