Good health screening tests

Health Screening Packages
November 28, 2009
What is a Mammogram ?
November 30, 2009

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced a new recommendation that women should have their regular breast-cancer screening starting at age 50 and not 40. It also recommended mammogram screening biennially and not yearly.

The Task Force cited that data collected so far showed that routine mammograms screening starting at age 40 rarely save lives. In fact routine mammograms often result in false positive reports with misdiagnosis. This occurs when there is a false alarm with the detection of breast cancer that’s either benign or growing too slowly to be of concern. False positive diagnosis leads to unnecessary anxiety, further expensive investigations and debilitating treatment.

However not all doctors agree with these new recommendations, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on 17 November 2009.

The American Cancer Society is still holding on to its recommendation of yearly mammograms for women starting at age 40.

Many of the health screening tests especially the tumour or cancer markers checks used for screening of early cancer are not accurate and may lead to false positive and false negative results.

Health screenings tests may be imperfect but they are not all together useless. They are very useful for people who are at risk. People with a strong family history of breast cancer should still consider going for annual routine mammogram at an early age of 40.

In fact there are two good health screening tests which are highly and strongly recommended by most doctors.

1. Pap Smears are proven to be highly effective in identifying precancerous and malignant cervical cancer cells. Women should get a Pap smear at least every other year starting at age 20.

2. Health screening for Colon cancer can be done with a simple stool for occult blood test. This is painless and very inexpensive to perform. Colonoscopies are expensive but are very effective in detecting precancerous polyps and early cancers. This is highly recommended for people who are above 50 years old.

 

Book your health screening appointment at MHC Medical Centre