Screening Exams

Why Preventative Screening?

Screening exams are designed to look for diseases before they cause symptoms. Early detection of diseases such as coronary artery disease and colon cancer before they cause symptoms allows modification of risk factors or early medical intervention to slow or halt disease progression.

A screening exam might be right for you if you are over 50 years of age (men over age 40 are candidates for a heart scan) and have no symptoms of disease (e.g. chest pain on exertion as a symptom of coronary atherosclerosis, or blood in the stool as a symptom of colon cancer), but are concerned about your health due to risk factors such as age, family history, diabetes, smoking or high cholesterol.

Every patient is unique and screening scans arent for everyone. We encourage you to talk to your doctor about your risk factors and which screening exams might be right for you. If you have symptoms which you specifically want investigated, please speak to your doctor about a diagnostic scan.

What are the limitations?

Screening scans have limitations. No screening test will detect all serious abnormalities, and such tests may in fact reveal information that has little or no medical significance, or may demonstrate benign abnormalities that mimic serious disease (false positives). The findings may require further testing for clarification.

Long-term randomized control trials are currently underway for CT screening, with results not expected for five to ten years. In the meantime, many non-randomized studies have been completed which demonstrate the ability of CT screening to effectively diagnose coronary artery disease, lung cancer and colon cancer before symptoms occur.

CT or Ultrasound screening is not recommended in place of traditional screening tests, such as annual mammography for women over 40 for breast cancer surveillance, and rectal examination and PSA blood testing for men over 50 for prostate cancer surveillance. Please be aware that the results of your screening scan may be very important and should be integrated with your overall health profile by your family physician. Within one business day of your scan, a detailed report of your results will be sent to your family physician.

Reporting & Consulting

Immediately following your scan, you will receive a personal consultation with one of our radiologists who will explain your results in simple, straight-forward terms.

This report will be mailed to you and copy will be sent to your physician. A copy of your scan images and a report will be kept on file, and may be released upon request.