After being fired, I became the light of medicine

Chapter 167: The sudden growth of ground glass nodules! (Subscribe)
What are ground glass nodules?

Simply put, when performing a CT scan, a faint, cloud-like shadow appears on the CT image.

Normally, human lungs are smooth and uniform in texture, with each alveolus tightly arranged and blood vessels arranged in them like a dense network.

Once images similar to ground-glass nodules appear, it means that some pathological changes have occurred in the lung tissue.

It can even be directly understood that some unknown tumors have grown in the lungs, which were originally of uniform texture.

of course,

Like tumors elsewhere in the human body, lung nodules can be divided into benign and malignant.

Benign nodules are generally indolent nodules and will not undergo significant changes even over many years.

Malignant nodules develop very quickly. If you don't pay attention to them for a year or two, they may expand and invade blood vessels, and even cause cancer cells to metastasize.

If we get to this point, it will be a bit troublesome.

Therefore,
Once a lung nodule is detected by CT scan, an experienced radiologist or respiratory physician will use the CT image to determine whether the nodule is most likely benign or malignant, and whether to continue observation or perform surgery directly.

In addition, there is another type of nodule on the lungs called "solid nodules".

Solid nodules are denser and more malignant than ground glass nodules, but one advantage of solid nodules is that they may exist like "scabs".

For example, after treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, the "tuberculosis virus" affects the lungs, eventually leading to the formation of solid nodules in the lung tissue.

This nodule is similar to a scar and does not have much impact.

For example, fibrosis of some lung tissues caused by smoking and then quitting smoking may also form lung nodules.

Anyway,

Solid nodules may also be "scars" on the lungs, but ground glass nodules are almost certainly pathological changes in the lung tissue.

To put it more simply, the discovery of ground glass nodules means there is a risk of lung cancer.

If it doesn't develop, it's fine. But once it develops, it almost has to undergo surgery, like a time bomb.

Fortunately, as long as lung nodules are discovered early and removed in time, the patient will be just like a normal person.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yang stood up and patted Feng Gang gently, comforting him:
"Director Feng, it's okay. I know a little bit about lung nodules. If they are removed early, it will be fine. Don't worry."

"Well, that's true."

Feng Gang exhaled slightly, and his expression relaxed a little after hearing Zhang Yang's comforting words.

"However, it would be great if you could develop a drug that can eliminate lung nodules. This way, I wouldn't have to undergo surgery."

"Ha ha!"

Zhang Yang couldn't help but laugh, he knew Feng Gang's words were half a joke.

Of course, he could also understand Feng Gang's mood at the moment. After all, anyone who encountered such a thing would hope that there would be a drug to treat it.

After chatting for a while, half an hour later, Zhang Yang returned to the Qingshan Pharmaceutical office.

Naturally, he would not suddenly plan to develop a drug to treat lung nodules just because of Feng Gang's words, but Feng Gang's incident did touch him a little.

To be precise, it was a reminder.

Although Feng Gang is not a clinical doctor, he is also a medical worker. He was able to discover lung nodules in a timely manner and take the matter seriously. But what about people who have little relevant medical knowledge or who do not take it seriously?
Will it delay the disease?

He thought of the employees of Qingshan Pharmaceutical.

You know, although the company arranges physical examinations for all employees every year, the physical examination reports are given to employees individually. The company is not aware of this and does not know whether there are some employees who have discovered lung nodules but did not take them seriously?

After thinking for a moment, Zhang Yang personally called Ren Xiaomin and let Ren Xiaomin be in charge of the internal affairs.

After a while, Ren Xiaomin appeared in the office.

"Zhang Yang, what's wrong? Do you want to talk to me about something?"

"Ah."

Zhang Yang stood up from his chair and poured a cup of tea for Ren Xiaomin, then told him that Feng Gang was diagnosed with lung nodules, which might be early lung cancer.

Ren Xiaomin naturally also knew Feng Gang, and they even had a pretty good relationship. He was stunned for a moment after hearing this.

"Director Feng Gang was diagnosed with early-stage lung cancer? My God, there are too many cancers nowadays, right?"

Zhang Yang shrugged helplessly and said:

"That's right. So I called you here to take a look at the CT reports of everyone during our company's physical examination this year."

"Go and see how many employees have been diagnosed with lung nodules, then find their CT scans and have a professional doctor take a look. If there are high-risk cases that require immediate surgery, immediate intervention should be carried out."

"And those employees at medium risk must also be informed solemnly to draw their attention. An early surgery can solve the problem. If it is delayed to the middle or late stage, it will be troublesome!"

"You can let the union chairman take care of this matter. This is also a reflection of our company's humanistic care."

Ren Xiaomin immediately understood Zhang Yang's idea. He had to admit that Zhang Yang's consideration was indeed very thoughtful.

"Oh, by the way, give me a copy of the detailed data after the statistics are compiled."

"it is good!"

After a few words, Ren Xiaomin took action.

This matter was not difficult for him. Qingshan Pharmaceutical's annual physical examination was arranged at the Third People's Hospital of Chengdu. He only needed to go to the hospital to extract the results of the CT report and he could quickly get accurate data.

Two days later, Ren Xiaomin appeared in Zhang Yang's office again, but this time he had an extra set of organized documents in his hand.

"Zhang Yang, this is the data I collected at the hospital these two days. The results are quite shocking!"

"This year, a total of 2142 of our employees underwent physical examinations, of which 340 were found to have lung nodules, accounting for 15.8%!"

Walking into the office, Ren Xiaomin's face was solemn. Without saying a word, he directly placed the results on Zhang Yang's desk.

Zhang Yang was also surprised, and a hint of disbelief flashed in his eyes!
"15.8%! Isn't this percentage too high?"

"How can there be so many!"

Ren Xiaomin shook his head and continued:
“I find it strange too!”

"I also specifically counted the data from four years ago and this year. Four years ago, although we only had a few hundred employees, the proportion was only 7%."

“I really don’t know why the proportion has increased by nearly 10% in just a few years!”

"I searched online these past two days and specifically asked several experts and professors in the Department of Respiratory Medicine. They all said that it might be because the CT machines are more advanced now, so there are more nodules in the report!"

"But I don't think this is the reason. We used the same CT machine for physical examinations a few years ago. How come it is so advanced all of a sudden? I think there may be another reason."

As he spoke, Ren Xiaomin quickly flipped through the report statistics from four years ago and this year's report statistics.

Zhang Yang took a closer look and found that it was just as Ren Xiaomin said, the proportion had obviously increased a lot!
"It's so weird!"

Zhang Yang's expression of surprise became even stronger, and he obviously saw the clues. However, after thinking for a long time, he shook his head:
"Forget it. We are not professionals in this kind of thing, and it is not our turn to delve into the specific reasons."

"Brother Ren, how are the 340 employees who were diagnosed with lung nodules? Have they seen a doctor for their CT scans? Has anyone been confirmed to have lung cancer and needs surgery?"

Ren Xiaomin also returned to the topic and immediately turned to the last page of the documents on his desk:
"I asked Director Liu and Deputy Director Zhang of the Department of Respiratory Medicine to look at all the CT images. Among the 340 reports of lung nodules, 286 were small nodules smaller than 5 mm. According to the current National Health Commission's lung nodule treatment guidelines, follow-up is recommended for nodules smaller than 5 mm, with annual examinations until they grow to 5 mm."

"Among the remaining 54 reports, 46 were of medium risk. Both professors suggested that they should pay close attention and follow up every six months or a year. If there is any problem, surgery should be performed immediately!" "Only in the last 8 reports did the two professors have some disagreements. In some reports, Director Liu suggested immediate surgery, while Deputy Director Zhang thought that they could observe and wait!"

"Oh? There's a disagreement between the two professors?"

Zhang Yang was startled. Seeing this, Ren Xiaomin continued to explain:
"I've also read those eight reports. It's really hard to tell from the imaging whether it's malignant or benign!"

"Currently, CT scans, MRIs, or other examination equipment cannot 100% determine the nature of the nodules.

This can only be judged based on the doctors’ experience, so it is inevitable that there will be some disagreements.”

"Of course, there will be some misdiagnoses."

"so……"

As he spoke, Ren Xiaomin couldn't help showing a bitter look on his face:
"I personally found these eight colleagues in the past two days and told them the views of the two professors."

"They are under a lot of pressure now and are struggling over who to listen to and whether to have surgery or continue observation. Some colleagues even took leave to see other doctors in other hospitals."

Zhang Yang also felt a headache after hearing this. If the doctors had disagreements on such a matter, the patient would naturally be in a dilemma.

After all, surgery to remove the lungs is no small matter no matter how you think about it.

At this moment, Ren Xiaomin couldn't help but sigh:
"Zhang Yang, it would be great if there was a drug that could determine whether a nodule is benign or malignant. This way, patients wouldn't have to worry about it and could just have surgery if necessary!"

"Doctors will not be under so much pressure when making judgments, and will not make misdiagnoses, which will also reduce a lot of medical disputes!"

"Imagine if the patient had surgery and found out the nodule was benign, how would he blame the doctor?"

Zhang Yang nodded, what Ren Xiaomin said was indeed true.

In fact, this idea is more reliable than the drug for treating lung nodules that Feng Gang mentioned before.

After all, although lung cancer is terrible, only about 20% of lung nodules actually turn into lung cancer.

Once we can tell whether a lung nodule is benign or malignant as soon as it is discovered, not only can we undergo timely surgical treatment, but patients diagnosed with lung nodules will also be less under great psychological pressure.

but……

Zhang Yang has no plans to develop such a drug, and Qingshan Pharmaceutical currently has no relevant lung researchers.

Thinking of this, he suddenly thought of Zhou Xiaomei.

"By the way, Brother Ren, what are the results of Xiaomei Zhou's CT scan?"

When Ren Xiaomin heard Zhang Yang mention Zhou Xiaomei, his originally tense expression relaxed.

In the past six months, Zhang Yang and Zhou Xiaomei have been communicating more and more. They often make plans to have dinner together after get off work. Ren Xiaomin is very happy to see this.

"My sister's examination report is fine. No lung nodules were found."

"Oh."

Zhang Yang breathed a sigh of relief:

"That's good, and how about her blood work?"

"She was a patient with 'severe aplastic anemia' before. Didn't she have a relapse?"

"No recurrence, everything is normal!"

"But Zhang Yang, if you care about my little sister, you can just ask her directly. Why are you asking me?"

The conversation between the two gradually became relaxed, and after a while, the discussion on Zhang Yang's idea of ​​screening the company's lung nodules, which was caused by Feng Gang's discovery of early-stage lung cancer, ended.

As for the eight employees with lung nodules who had some disagreements, Zhang Yang also asked the union chairman to follow up the whole process. Regardless of whether the final choice is to undergo surgery or continue observation, the company will fully support it.

A few days later, Zhang Yang remembered that Director Feng Gang was about to undergo surgery, but when he called to express his concern, he learned that Feng Gang's surgery had been delayed.

Zhang Yang did not ask for the specific reason. Since the surgery was postponed, his attention gradually shifted from the ground glass nodules to the "Sperm Strengthening Oral Liquid" which was currently undergoing clinical trials.

However, "Strong Sperm Oral Liquid" is an "effective compound" automatically screened by a simulated laboratory. It has undergone "animal experiments" and "preclinical preparations" and there is nothing to modify at this stage.

Successful completion of Phase II and Phase III clinical trials will almost ensure that the product will be marketed, and he won’t have to worry about it anymore.

Zhang Yang then turned his attention to another drug for treating "teratozoospermia" and "azoospermia".

Since it was discovered that the target of this drug is sperm morphology regulatory protein, or SMRP, Zhang Yang has moved from the simulation laboratory to reality.

Firstly, after discovering the SMRP target, the search for "lead compounds" at least has a specific direction, and can now be handed over to the scientific researchers of the project team to try one by one.

Secondly, Zhang Yang found that he could not afford to conduct long-term simulation experiments. In just over a month, his original energy value of 950 points was reduced to only 400 points.

The most important thing is that the "Strong Sperm Oral Liquid" for treating "asthenozoospermia" is already in clinical trials. There is no need to rush for this drug, which also treats infertility. The scientific research team can slowly find a suitable "lead compound" and then slowly develop it!
Not in a hurry.

……

The orderly progress of various tasks allowed Zhang Yang to enjoy a rare relaxing time.

In a flash, more than half a month has passed.

Not only has he been feeling a lot more relaxed recently, the subjects participating in the clinical trial of "Strengthening Sperm and Strengthening the Body Oral Liquid" are also enjoying a rare moment of relaxation.

Chengdu Third People's Hospital, Clinical Trial Center.

Today is Monday, and it is time to get medicine, draw blood, and test sperm once a week.

Liu Qiang arrived at the test center on time early in the morning. After taking the medicine for more than half a month, regardless of whether it was effective or not, at least he had some thoughts in his mind.

After a while, members of the first group of the Phase II clinical trial he was in arrived one after another. After knowing each other for more than half a month, they became familiar with each other and greeted each other.

The time quickly came to nine o'clock in the morning. Seeing that the blood test was about to begin, Liu Qiang took a quick look at the members of his team and suddenly found something wrong.

"Hey, why hasn't Xiao Wang come today? He's usually very active!"

"Yes! And Xiao Li, Xiao Li is usually the first one here, why hasn't he come today?"

Not only Liu Qiang noticed the incomplete team members, another member of the same group also noticed the abnormality.

Soon, someone suggested:

"Send a message in the group to ask! Don't forget."

"it is good."

Liu Qiang immediately took out his mobile phone and opened the patient group, but when he just sent @Xiao Li and Xiao Wang, a message suddenly appeared in front of him.

"@刘强, @老王, haha, I'm pregnant, I won't continue to participate in the clinical trial!"

pregnant? !
Liu Qiang was stunned for a moment, and an indescribable feeling suddenly surged in his heart.

Envy, jealousy, and a hint of anticipation and excitement.

The news quickly spread among the first group, and several patients present all expressed their admiration for Xiao Wang's good luck!

"It's only been three weeks since the clinical trial? And she's pregnant already?!"

"Oh! I'm so envious!"

However, someone soon realized that it was a problem to withdraw from the clinical trial halfway.
(End of this chapter)