Has anyone had a private cancer screening blood test?

[AnnoyingWM]

All of my siblings have had cancer and 2 died pretty young, one survived. I'm late 50s now and just not feeling right. I'm on hrt and nothing else.

I saw there's a non profit company that does a blood test but am not sure if it's worth the money?
I'm at the GP soon so maybe I should ask them too?
TIA for any advice. And much love to anyone struggling or has loved ones struggling. It's horrendous ❤️

I’d be interested to know what the actual blood test is because, without imaging, it could just result in a whole load of worry.
A high reading for CA125 for example, doesn’t necessarily mean cancer. Just like a normal CA125 doesn’t mean you dont have cancer.

If you have any symptoms then I’d trust the GP to order the relevant tests and imaging necessary after a discussion and a physical examination.

I get it, I’ve lost loved ones to cancer and it’s a worry, but sometimes these tests, in isolation, just lead to more worry.

How would that work. If it was that easy to diagnose cancers with a blood test you would have thought it would be offered to everyone. Just wait to discuss your worries with the Dr.

You can get private whole-body mri scans for around £1500 which are reasonably accurate at diagnosing the vast majority of cancers.

But equally at your age and with your history I would hope that a gp would order cancer tests for you.

Thanks everyone.

That sounds cheap for a full body scan?

Yes I'll talk to the GP.

I wonder if what you saw was testing for the BRCA 1&2 genes? If you have three siblings that have had cancer, particularly at relatively young ages, it might well be a worthwhile test for you to have done @AnnoyingWM. Your GP should be able to organise that.

Hope you feel back to yourself soon!

If you google cheap private mri scan with ai they are the first one which comes up. I don’t work for them and have only done it once so I don’t know how reputable they are, but my experience was good.

What’s the blood test for though? Because there isn’t really one blood test for cancer. There are ones that look for sort of circulating tumour markers, but they aren’t conclusive. I can see how they would provide and inaccurate and false sense of security.

If you have close family who had potentially genetically linked cancers (breast, bowel), then I would push for or go private for extra screenings for those specifically. Otherwise, other than being mindful of how you feel and trusting your gut if something doesn’t seem right, I’d get on with living life. You are fortunate to have good health at the moment and I wouldn’t squander it worrying about the possibility something could go wrong in the future.