What Can a Preventative Scan Detect?
Preventative screenings are non-invasive ways to gather detailed health information about what’s going on inside you. They allow for early detection of serious illnesses and conditions, such as cancer.
Types of preventative scans include:
- Bone density scans
- DEXA scans
- Full-body preventative scans
- Heart scans
- Lung scans
The benefits of preventative screenings make these scans a valuable proactive healthcare tool that can help keep you healthy or address issues before they escalate into severe health conditions.
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What Can a Preventative Scan Detect?
Preventative scans detect abnormalities throughout the body. Depending on the type of scan, the screening can reveal abnormal growths, such as tumors. Some scans can also reveal structural abnormalities that could lead to severe health issues.
Some scans can also reveal buildups that can cause health issues. For example, when calcium builds up in your coronary arteries, it means you have an increased risk of suffering a heart attack and may have coronary artery disease.
What Can a Heart Scan Detect?
Heart scans can reveal calcium buildup in your coronary arteries, as well as issues affecting your valves, thoracic aorta, and pericardium.
What Can a Lung Scan Detect?
Lung scans can detect lung cancer in its earliest stages, reducing the lung cancer mortality rate by 20%.
What Can a Full-Body Scan Detect?
Full-body scans can identify a range of issues, including aneurysms, arthritis, gallstones, hernias, kidney stones, and osteoporosis.
What Can a DEXA Scan Detect?
DEXA scans measure bone density and visceral fat levels. This data can help determine your risk of developing osteoporosis and other severe health issues.
Can Preventative Scans Find Problems Before Symptoms Appear?
Preventative scans can detect health threats in their earliest stages. Signs of cancer can be detected before you experience any symptoms, and also identify tumors that are only a few millimeters in size.
Can a Scan Detect Cancer?
Some preventative scans are effective tools for detecting cancer in its earliest stages. It’s particularly important to invest in a preventative screening test if you are at risk of getting lung cancer because symptoms of lung cancer aren’t usually evident until the disease has progressed to stage 3 or 4, reducing the chances of survival.
Abdominal CT scans can detect multiple types of cancer, including:
- Kidney
- Ovarian
- Pancreatic
Can a Scan Identify Heart Disease Risk?
There are types of heart CT scans that reveal an elevated risk of developing cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, and heart disease. A coronary calcium score test looks at your coronary arteries and determines if there’s calcium and plaque buildup, which can indicate you’re at risk of suffering a heart attack.
Can a Preventative Scan Detect Abnormalities?
Preventative scans can reveal several abnormalities, including:
- Calcium
- Cysts
- Growths
- Nodules
- Masses
- Plaque
- Stones
- Tumors
Abnormal tissue growths, such as masses and tumors, can be early signs of cancer.
What Happens if a Scan Finds Something Unexpected?
If you have a preventative scan and it reveals a potential health risk, this will be highlighted in your report, so you understand what the scan revealed, where the issue is located, and the potential health risks. You can then take your scan to your primary care physician to discuss the results and determine the next steps.
The steps to take after discovering an issue depend on the nature of the issue. Suppose your scan revealed a mass. Your doctor may send you to a specialist. You may then have a biopsy to determine if the mass is cancerous. Your treatment would depend on the biopsy results. Depending on the results and location of the mass, you may have surgery or chemotherapy, or both.
Or suppose your scan reveals plaque buildup in your coronary arteries. You may need a procedure, such as an angioplasty or atherectomy, to prevent a blockage.
What Are the Limitations of Preventative Imaging?
Preventative scans may reveal tiny abnormalities, such as benign cysts, that pose no health risk. It’s possible to be worried about your health because of a false alarm; however, ruling out a health risk will reassure you that you’re in good health.
Without preventative scans, you may incorrectly assume you’re in good health because you don’t have any symptoms; however, being symptom-free doesn’t mean being healthy.
Preventative scans look at your physical condition. Depending on the type of scan, they can identify abnormalities in your organs, veins, and arteries. However, they do not look at things like your blood sugar levels, which could indicate you have diabetes, or your cholesterol levels, which can indicate your risk of serious health issues, such as:
- Angina
- Atherosclerosis
- Heart attack
- Stroke
Why Consider a Preventative Scan in Las Vegas?
Preventative Diagnostic Center offers preventative scan packages at our Las Vegas location. These packages make it affordable to receive detailed information about your health.
Identifying serious health issues in their earliest stages increases the likelihood that you’ll make a full recovery or prevent symptoms from progressing to the point where they affect your quality of life. Early treatment for conditions, such as cancer, is often shorter and less expensive, as well.
When you schedule a scan with Preventative Diagnostic Center, you can have confidence you’re receiving a thorough, low-dose, non-invasive CT scan that will provide the health information you need to identify potential concerns or restore your peace of mind.