Chapter 872 - 415: Major Breakthrough in Diagnostic Techniques—Cancer Confirmed

Chapter 872: Chapter 415: Major Breakthrough in Diagnostic Techniques—Cancer Confirmed

The patient’s coughing continues, requiring forceful pressure on the chest while coughing desperately.

The cough of bronchitis is more abrupt, sounding like blowing into a torn bag.

In contrast, the sound of bronchitis is more muffled and sometimes prolonged. It’s somewhat like a soprano reaching high notes, stretching the tone, but unable to reach the pitch.

Li Jingsheng is meticulously distinguishing the lesion location in the patient.

This is a direction he has recently wanted to break through.

Previously, he couldn’t even determine if there was a respiratory tract lesion from the patient’s cough. Later, as his diagnostic level in pulmonary medicine improved, he could roughly infer the respiratory tract condition just by listening to the patient’s cough or even their speech.

Only being able to determine whether there is a lesion in the respiratory tract is certainly not enough.

A medical practitioner must strive for excellence.

Now he is attempting to sprint towards a more advanced diagnostic level.

Precisely locating the specific site of the lesion through the patient’s cough.

Although Western clinical diagnosis emphasizes evidence, relying on test results rather than doctors’ guesses, subjective diagnosis by doctors is also very meaningful.

When doctors examine patients, less skilled doctors only mechanically order tests by the textbook. Those with slightly better skills will perform a preliminary diagnosis.

Then a series of targeted tests are ordered.

Both might seem able to find the cause of the illness, but the former takes many detours.

It not only wastes the patient’s money but also delays time.

If the patient has an acute and severely dangerous condition, every second is extremely precious. If unfortunately, they encounter a less skilled doctor who wastes precious rescue time on unnecessary tests, it is absolutely heartbreaking.

The patient also suffers extraordinary misfortune and might ultimately die because the optimal rescue timing is missed.

Li Jingsheng’s direction of improving medical skills is undoubtedly correct.

However, the path he’s taking is incredibly challenging, not something an average doctor dares to pursue.

On the other hand, if he manages to succeed, due to the high threshold making it almost non-replicable, he might become the strongest doctor of this era.

He leaned sideways, carefully distinguishing the patient’s cough.

"The sound is broken and stuttering; this definitely can’t be caused by bronchial or tracheal lesions. It’s likely that only major changes in the lungs could cause such a phenomenon."

Li Jingsheng quickly analyzed in his mind.

As for which part of the lung has changed, he cannot differentiate for now.

It will likely require his pulmonary diagnostic skills to reach a higher level to distinguish which part of the lung has a lesion.

[Pulmonary Medicine Diagnosis +1, Life Value +1000.]

This is truly an unexpected surprise.

Who would have thought that just by listening to a cough, he could receive such an astonishing life value reward.

This reward should belong to major breakthroughs in medical skills.

Almost every time he has a significant breakthrough in medical skills, he receives such large life value rewards.

The smallest reward is 10 life values; the largest can be 100. Receiving a direct reward of 1000 is quite rare.

With this unexpected gain of life value, he can now promote his doctor level to Director and still have a lot left over.

From the moment he jumped into the medical academy, he’s been hoping for the day to ’finally bear fruit’ and become a Chief Physician.

Now he finally has this opportunity.

He didn’t hesitate and decisively consumed over four thousand life values to promote his doctor level directly from Associate Chief Physician to Chief Physician.

At this moment, he felt life was complete.

He finally stepped into the highest level longed for by doctors.

The highest clinical doctor level is Chief Physician, at the top already.

Further advancement is not attainable for ordinary people; it’s a ’titled’ level.

For example, beyond a Chief Physician level, one can strive for a Yangtze River Scholar, and then after becoming a Scholar, further pursue even higher titles.

As for the ultimate level, the Academician, it can’t be achieved just by strength.

Luck is needed too.

The vast majority of the top, most exceptional doctors wouldn’t regret stopping at the status of Academician candidate.

This is truly without regret.

Life’s reversal is sometimes so spectacular. Putting oneself back to half a year ago, Li Jingsheng wasn’t even expecting to challenge for Chief Physician. Ensuring Tang Ping’s salary was paid would have satisfied him.

Li Jingsheng

Level: Level 3 Chief Physician 10000/20000

Feeling the brand new level, completely different experience, he was very indulged.

Although only a Level 3 Chief Physician, for him, this was already very satisfying.

At this step, if his academic title can keep up, he can immediately become a genuine Chief Physician and truly an expert.

On the other hand, not many Level 3 Chief Physicians call themselves experts.

They are often imposed by others.

No choice, this is how society is; just a bit of social status allows one to hear a lot of flattering words.

The patient had finished coughing by this time, and Li Jingsheng began to examine the skeletal condition of the limbs and other areas using the Bone Touching Skill.

He discovered that after his doctor level was elevated to Chief Physician, the Bone Touching Skill seemed to have advanced again.

The higher the doctor’s level, the stronger the skills become.

The feel of bone touching has become even clearer, and the diagnosis and analysis of information after the touching have also become more ’quick-witted’.

Indeed, advancing a doctor’s level is the ultimate way.

Upon careful examination, he found that, just as Director Zhong Hu mentioned, the patient’s limb joints were obviously swollen.

The hardness felt moderate, neither the softer kind associated with edema nor the hard kind of hematoma or tumor.

Its firmness was comparable to that of ordinary muscle.

But as he carefully felt the patient’s bone structure, his heart sank to the bottom.

The patient’s bone structure was in poor condition.

Not only was there osteoporosis, but also signs of withering, like a tree about to wilt and die.

Under normal circumstances, no matter how sick a person is, as long as there’s a breath left, the bone structure would exhibit normal vibrancy.

Based on his experience with bone touching, whenever withering bone structure appears, it signals a major illness.

And it’s likely a malignant tumor.

Only the extreme destructiveness of a malignant tumor could cause the bones to lose vitality and wither slowly.

Malignant tumor cells are the demons among demons; their destructiveness and plundering of the body’s nutrients are very dominant, leaving no breathing room for the body.

If it were a benign tumor, it might also monopolize most of the body’s nutrients, but it wouldn’t damage other parts of the body.

The sound of the patient’s cough suggests a lesion in the lungs, and the bone structure from the touching skill is extremely bad, indicating cancer, and the cancer cells have already invaded the bones manifesting in the withering bone structure.

Moreover, the patient’s joint pain had lasted over four months.

This indicates that the cancer cells inside the bone were not a matter of a day or two.

If it were an in-situ cancer within the bones, symmetrical pain in the limbs would rarely occur.

Most patients begin experiencing pain at the lesion site.

This aspect also reflects that the patient’s bone cancer likely originated from metastasis.

There aren’t many cancer types that invade limb bones simultaneously. For example, the so-called king of cancers, pancreatic cancer, is very well-behaved.

In its early stages, it shows almost no apparent symptoms.

But once it starts showing symptoms, it is already advanced.

Adenomas are often benign, but adenocarcinomas are notorious.

Lung cancers also belong to the family of adenocarcinomas.

The patient’s teeth were so black, indicating a long history of smoking.

Not long ago, Li Jingsheng had also determined lung lesions in the patient.

Combining this with the symmetrical limb pain, he no longer needed further diagnosis or analysis.

"Director Zhong, I’ve finished the examination, let’s talk outside!"

Li Jingsheng naturally wouldn’t discuss cancer matters in front of the patient.

Some truths should never be lightly told to patients.

Upon learning they have cancer, many patients develop a heavy mental burden, which is counterproductive to their condition.

Some even suggest cancer patients should never undergo chemotherapy, lest it causes their lifespan to shorten instead.

Spending hundreds of thousands with the intention to treat cancer but instead shortening one’s life, is this not quite surreal?

Chemotherapy is a double-edged sword, defeating a thousand enemies but harming oneself eight hundred.

Many patients’ bodies cannot withstand chemotherapy.

Usually, after just one or two rounds of chemotherapy, the patient’s body visibly deteriorates.

This is because modern medical technology hasn’t matured to that point yet, otherwise chemotherapy would have been phased out by now.

Radiotherapy also greatly harms the body.

Currently, humanity’s methods to fight cancer are still quite weak. The truly effective ones are just surgical removal, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.

As for targeted drugs and immune T-cell drugs, they haven’t yet reached a very mature technological stage, and there’s still a long way to go.

To advance quickly, a lot of funding is needed.

A good team might secure some basic research funding, but five million a year is just a drop in the bucket for true top-tier research projects.

Zhong Hu and Li Jingsheng walked out of the ward.

"Xiaoli, have you finished the examination so quickly? You might just be eager to get back to work, so you say so?"

Zhong Hu was somewhat skeptical.

Because it seemed like Li Jingsheng just skimmed through things, entered the ward and had a brief chat with the patient, touched the bones a bit, then said he was done, wasn’t this simply going through the motions?

He had no idea, Li Jingsheng had already quickly diagnosed many rounds in his mind.

"Director Zhong, I am indeed in a hurry to get back to the clinic; only five minutes left. But just now examining the patient, I consider myself to have been thorough. The thoroughness of an examination isn’t strongly related to its duration. That’s what I believe."

After explaining, Li Jingsheng began to share the key points, discussing the condition.

"We should take a lung X-ray of the patient; I suspect it’s very likely lung cancer and has metastasized, causing the limb joints to swell and show abnormal growth."

Once he started speaking, he stunned Director Zhong.

"Y-you say the patient has cancer?"

"Yes! I am almost certain it’s bone cancer, and the lungs could be the first organ where cancer started. Later on, it metastasized."

Li Jingsheng nodded solemnly to confirm.

"Taking an X-ray should reveal it."