Zhou Zengtong, chairman of the Professional Committee of Oral Mucosal Diseases of the Chinese Stomatological Association and director of the Department of Oral Mucosal Diseases of the Ninth People's Hospital affiliated to the School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiaotong University, believes that the loss of taste of cancer patients is a common phenomenon and can be recovered to some extent after treatment. Professor Li Peiwen, chief physician of Chinese medicine oncology department of China-Japan Friendship Hospital of the Ministry of Health, said that some cancer patients can slowly recover their taste without treatment, while others can take drugs that strengthen the spleen and nourish the stomach, clear away heat and detoxify as appropriate.
Director Zhou analyzed that taste loss of cancer patients can be divided into physiological and pathological categories. For example, some people have a tongue tumor, which has destroyed the tongue nerve, or the tumor is related to the sensory nerve of the tongue. The loss of taste in these patients is pathological, usually sudden and irreversible.
Physiological taste loss mainly refers to those who are not directly related to tumors, but are mostly caused by physical weakness after long-term treatment. At this time, atrophy of tongue papilla may occur. In addition, tumor patients often have dry tongue after operation, or the nipple of the tongue is particularly sensitive to cold and hot pain, which will lead to a decline in taste.
Professor Li pointed out that cancer patients need to choose according to the treatment method when using traditional Chinese medicine to regulate their spleen and stomach. If systemic chemotherapy will cause spleen and stomach weakness, it is necessary to take drugs to strengthen the spleen and nourish the stomach at this time; However, head and neck radiotherapy will lead to excessive heat due to yin deficiency. At this time, we should take some drugs to clear away heat and toxic materials.
In addition, cancer patients can also choose the corresponding food to accelerate the recovery of taste. For example, chemotherapy patients can boil water with dried tangerine peel, drink more barley porridge, eat more yam, radish and jujube to restore the spleen and stomach; Radiotherapy patients can eat more reed roots, drink chrysanthemum tea, tremella tea and mung bean soup to clear away heat and detoxify. If the patient's taste does not recover for a long time, he should see a doctor in time and treat it according to syndrome differentiation under the guidance of a doctor.