The Importance of Prevention: Full Body CT Scans for Early Detection of Cancer

Understanding the Impact of Cancer

Prevention is better than cure. It’s been said again and again, but the truth cannot be taken away from this quote. Whenever we need a remedy for anything, it would be better to not acquire any problems in the first place. Such as cancer.

Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases in medical history. Cancer is incurable, and once terminal, your life will be at stake. Some cancer patients might say that it would have been better if there would have been a way to avoid it.

A Method for Preventive Screening

Full body CT Scan is one of the methods used by physicians for preventive screening. The objective of full-body scanning is to pinpoint any malignancies in the human body and give doctors a quicker diagnosis of a patient’s sickness and how it could be remedied. The advantage of having a full body scan is by detecting tumors and cancer cells at an early stage, which therefore can be treated before it becomes incurable.

A Controversial Screening Tool

One of the more common full-body scanners is a CT Scan or Computed Tomography Scan. Closely identical to it is the CAT Scan, or Computed Axial Tomography Scan. It demonstrates the body’s scanner’s ability to generate a 3-D image of the human body during the entire process, with each image called a slice. Whole body CT Scan has the capability to detect potential diseases at an early stage like infections or tissue defects, and polyps, an early stage in which a cell could potentially regress in our bodies, and develop into cancer.

 Balancing Benefits and Radiation Exposure

However, CT Scans are quite controversial due to the amount of radiation the machine emits, which can be absorbed in high doses by the human body, risking the possibility of acquiring cancerous cells. Due to high radiation exposure, doctors are weighing on the option of the patient’s body can outweigh the benefits of undergoing a CT Scan than gaining more risks.

 Why Healthy Individuals Should Exercise Caution

There’s no doubt that CT body scan offers great potential as screening tools. They provide useful snapshots of the coronary arteries, and for heavy smokers, lung scans are excellent at pinpointing tumors. But they do expose you to radiation that far exceeds that of a – routine chest X-ray. So, coming to the conclusion which says people with no disease should ignore full-body scanning as a screening tool.