The Department of Health is drawing up new guidance to cover private clinics offering MoT” body scans to the worried well amid concerns about the dangers of exposure to the radiation involved. The move follows recommendations from the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE), and is likely to include banning some types of scan altogether,aoc power leveling, and the setting of minimum ages for others. In the past decade there has been rapid growth in the number of private clinics using computerised tomography (CT) scans to assess people’s coronary arteries, to screen for early signs of lung cancer and to check the abdomen for bowel, kidney and other cancers. That prevention is better than cure is a clich&eacute,warhammer power leveling; that appears on most of the providers’ websites, but the benefits of screening outwardly healthy people on criteria based largely on their ability to pay are not as well established as most of their customers think - and I speak from personal experience. Three years ago I put myself forward for a scan when I was working on article on the subject, and ended up wishing that I hadn’t. The CT found some suspicious-looking nodules in my lungs, which I was told could be anything from old scars of a previous infection to the early stages of lung cancer (I was a smoker in my late teens and twenties). The problem was, there was no simple way to tell the difference except by undergoing surgery or having a repeat scan to see whether the lumps were getting bigger. I had the latter and was mightily relieved a year later to be told that nothing had changed. Related LinksHealth MoT tests ‘are misleading’ But this type of scan turns up nodules like mine in about one person in ten - 90 per cent of whom, like me, will have nothing to worry about. To make matters worse, it is not clear whether picking up the growing nodules in the unlucky minority (1 per cent) who do have cancer makes any difference to their outcome. COMARE advises that such lung scans should be stopped altogether until there is convincing evidence of benefit. Three of my patients have been put in a similar situation and all were eventually given the all-clear. But I also had one patient who did benefit from booking a private scan - a middle-aged chap who wanted to be screened for bowel cancer (a process known as virtual colonoscopy). The test picked up a cancer that might not have come to light until much later, allowing early treatment with an excellent outcome. Indeed, virtual colonoscopy can even detect suspicious growths (polyps) years before they turn cancerous, allowing doctors to make a pre-emptive strike and snip them off. But there is a downside. Virtual colonoscopy involves significant exposure to radiation; anywhere between 2 and 10 millisieverts (mSv), depending on the machine and the patient - the equivalent of up to 1,000 chest X-rays and enough to cause a fatal radiation-induced cancer in as many as one person in 2,000 undergoing the test. To be fair, this predicted risk of dying as a result of your scan is only a guesstimate that is questioned in some circles, but you should be aware of it. If your doctor orders a CT scan because he is worried about your health, then the benefits of the resulting diagnostic input are likely far to outweigh any risks from the radiation involved, but if you are fit and well there is a risk,maplestory power leveling, albeit slim, that the test could give you the very disease that you are so keen to avoid. The new guidance is likely to compromise by suggesting that virtual colonoscopy be limited to people over 50, who are at greater risk of bowel cancer. CT scans are miraculous diagnostic tools but their role in screening healthy people has still to be established in many areas. In the meantime,runescape power leveling, we should not forget one of the basic tenets of the Hippocratic oath: primum non nocere - first, do no harm. For full details of COMARE’s nine recommendations, visit comare.org.uk

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