‘Preventative’ health scans - should we prioritise them?

[User14March]

Davina’s preventative health scan may well have saved her life. Should we prioritise these in middle age?

A friend is currently dying from an unusual cancer, there’s a good chance it would have been picked up on a scan at a curable stage. We’ll all know similar I am sure.

I think so.
I thought when I saw the video that she was lucky she had a health check (private one) as most people don't have those sort of tests unless they have symptoms. And obvs I know she's not lucky - it's awful what she's having to deal with.

When you say we do you mean the NHS ?

Unfortunately it will cost to much and therefore be deemed unviable.

My view is that if the NHS was more proactive about picking up illnesses and it was easier to be referred more people would be in better health.

But the NHS doesn’t have the finances or the doctors to do this.

Personally it is something I will be looking into paying for - there’s no way I would trust the NHS with my health.

The issue is where would you find the budget for it? Buildings, scanners, staff, appointments.

No, I have cancer and I wouldn’t want to be having preventative scans. The scans I have do carry long term risks. Some of the contrast solutions can cause ongoing complications and the scan I’m having on Tuesday will actually make me emit radiation, so I can’t be around my dc after due to radiation risks to them. If you are ill, the risks are 100% worth it, but if you are just rich with money to burn on private scans, no because the benefits don’t outweigh the risks.

What we do need is actually faster referral times for everyone with cancer (to be fair, Davina does not have cancer so this doesn’t apply to her). I have been very fortunate that once my cancer was diagnosed, I very quickly had scans (within 2 weeks) and lifesaving surgery (within 3 weeks) and am starting treatment at the earliest possible point (4 weeks post-op, as soon as I’ve healed). I’ve had a wonderful team who have advocated for me. I wouldn’t have gotten this level of care for a very aggressive cancer if everyone and their sister was clogging up the CT scanner though.

I did look in to this privately. It seemed that the vast majority of the issues they would pick up would either never turn into anything serious or would not be treatable until they were worse due to the adverse effects of the treatment.

I've spoken to a few doctor friends who agree.

I am still tempted but Davina level checks worked be very expensive.

My partner and I had them done last year. Picked up he was totally lacking in Vit D he had several infusions and most of his health problems are fixed_ it was miraculous. For me they picked up possible breast cancer and a gynaecological cancer for which I was referred back to NHS for treatment now awaiting a hysterectomy. We are going to gave them done e very two years now. We are mid fifties. We had them done at a facility called HCA in the Shard and they were done on his works private health insurance.

I meant privately, clearly prohibitively expensive for many but should we prioritise ahead of a holiday etc for example? I think these private health scan clinics have own equipment.

Yes absolutely. I would switch insurers to one that focused on this as a key benefits package.

@BangFlash what’s the difference? Think Davina had a ‘health scan’.

i think it’s a good idea. My worry would be that NHS would not have the resources to cope with all the issues detected by the screening.

The trouble is a lot of people will have abnormalities which can be detected on a scan but will probably never cause any problem. The stress and the worry of finding them and subsequent investigations can be massive.

my DH fell and hit his head after drinking a few years ago, he was taken to A&E and due to being on blood thinners had a CT scan. It was found that he had a brain tumour. Cue weeks of anxiety and worry while it was worked out if this was cancerous or not. Thankfully it wasn’t but I do wonder if we would have been happier not knowing

Agree. She’s incredibly courageous.

I agree in principle, but at the moment the NHS is having trouble treating the already-sick.

@ChocHotolate did he have surgery? How worrying for you.

Exactly this. The NHS requires a high level of evidence that a treatment is really of benefit before implementing and there is a process to go through.

They do actually do some preventative scans though - like breast scans. There has recently been a trial in a number of areas where any former or current smoker gets a two yearly CT scan. It is operated in the same way as breast scans - a portacabin with a scanner in a car park somewhere. I've been on it from the start. After 3/4 years, now, I believe it has been recommended that it should be rolled out nationally because it met the thresholds of evidence that it was effective in catching lung issues early and therefore improved both outcomes for patients and saved the NHS money on the subsequent more expensive treatment of far more serious issues further down the line.

These CT scans have also had a knock on effect of increasing the number of fast track colonoscopies as they also pick up parts of the upper colon. I know because that happened to me. The colonoscopy nurse was telling me that in most of the cases that got referred to them like that the colonoscopy was clear (like mine) and the issue that was picked up was most likely that I'd moved fractionally during the scan or it was somethink I had eaten beforehand. Next time I go for the CT scan, I think I'll fast for a bit!

A friend who works with hazardous materials paid for one of those lung low dose CT scans. It was initially read by AI and then a real human sanity checked it. It helped them a lot to get a clear scan as they have ex-colleagues going down with lung conditions and this gave some peace of mind to stop focussing on symptoms they had. The AI will learn to differentiate more and more - also sounds like good advice to tell people to fast so they don't get warped results from matter in the upper digestive tract.

I think the worry that some have that these preventative screenings will bring too much work to the NHS may be misplaced? As early stage conditions are much easier and less expensive to treat in many cases? Although I know they can throw up images such as benign cysts which may lead to unecessary scanning.

I presume that Davina had a whole body MRI screen rather than expose herself unecessarily to radiation with different classes of scans?

I think this is a very interesting development to do preventative scanning but it will only be available to those with financial means for a long time - also interested in the "liquid biopsy" blood tests that look for early stage cancer, currently in trial in the NHS (Galieri trial) but also available now privately for about £1.5k

They are
done by the NHS when there is a clear benefit
Like breast screening and lung CT for smokers . Most of those private MOT scans are rubbish and many not even read by a qualified doctor.

Faster track in the NHS for cancer treatment is a better investment

A good

The trouble is a lot of people will have abnormalities which can be detected on a scan but will probably never cause any problem. The stress and the worry of finding them and subsequent investigations can be massive.

It's still good for these small abnormalities which will "probably" never cause any problem to be picked up. This way, they can be looked at again in X number of years to see if anything has changed and this will mean that any changes to them will be picked up on at an earlier stage than will happen when no checks are done and the abnormalities are picked up only once they've started causing significant problems. It's not enough to shrug your shoulders and say that something will "probably" never cause any issues.

We shouldn't all have our health neglected because some people spiral into doom scenarios on being informed there's anything slightly abnormal about their results.