The recent news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis has sent shockwaves across the nation, reminding all of us of the importance of detecting health conditions early on.
While the specifics of the King’s condition are yet to be disclosed, the conversations sparked by his diagnosis have shone a spotlight on preventative healthcare, encouraging us all to think more proactively about our health and wellbeing.
At Echelon Health, we see this as a step in the right direction.
Our team understands the importance of preventative healthcare more than most, and has seen first hand the impact that recent technological advances have had in catching health conditions sooner rather than later.
In this blog post, we highlight what some of these advances have been and explain why, when it comes to prioritising your health, prevention is always better than cure.
The role of medical technology in cancer diagnosis
Recent technological advancements have completely revolutionised our ability to detect and treat various health conditions, including cancer.
Prostate cancer, for instance, is estimated to affect one in eight men in their lifetime. Today, through the combined use of advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) equipment and highly precise radiotherapy, the condition can now be diagnosed in its infancy and treated with greater success.
Similarly, other types of cancers that previously went undetected for many years, such as colon cancer, can be caught much earlier through regular screening using new and improved methods.
Breast cancer, cervical cancer or colorectal cancer used to be detrimental diagnoses. Nowadays, advances in MRI, CT, and various other imaging technologies – like virtual colonoscopies and mammograms, allow us to detect tumours at their earliest stages of development. Some of the latest CT scanners can detect tumours as small as 0.3 millimetres.
The early detection of cancers using these methods allows us to provide clients with much more positive prognoses, preventing tumours from progressing and ensuring the right treatment plan can commence without delay.
The importance of tailored preventative healthcare
While recent technological advances may have improved our ability to detect and treat cancers earlier on, that’s not all they’ve done. They’ve also allowed us to offer more detailed health assessments to patients, providing a thorough overview of their overall health and wellbeing by utilising the best imaging modality to detect the relevant disease. While an MRI is ideal for detection brain tumours and prostate cancers, a CT scanner is optimal for identifying colon cancer and many heart conditions.
Imaging equipment like the Canon Apollo ultrasound scanner, for example, can record high-resolution images of organs such as the thyroid, testes, ovaries and blood vessels. Whereas EOS scanners have been designed to assess skeletal-related aspects like bone rotation, posture and spinal alignment using Nobel Prize-winning technology.
The ability to gather a detailed insight through specialist equipment can not only provide you with an overview of your health but also your healthcare professional.
Using your results, they can then use their expertise in preventative healthcare to offer tailored recommendations on what you can do to improve your health moving forward.
Whether that’s exercising more; prioritising sleep; monitoring certain symptoms; or simply being referred straight to a specialist, the increased level of insight we can now gather through health screenings empowers you to make more informed choices over your own health.
Raised awareness = increased prevention
By choosing to publicly disclose his cancer diagnosis, King Charles III has not only helped highlight the importance of preventative healthcare, but has also raised awareness of this important issue.
Searches for ‘enlarged prostate’ were shown to soar after King Charles announced that he was receiving treatment, with the NHS website’s page for prostate enlargement receiving 11 times as many visitors as the day before.
This movement can only be seen as a positive development, helping educate us as a collective about the importance of taking proactive, preventative action.
Having a comprehensive assessment of your health allows you to take control of your own wellbeing and act accordingly. Such assessments enable effective preventative measures to be put in place to help lower your risk of certain health conditions and offer a huge range of benefits.
At Echelon Health, we have a number of comprehensive health assessment packages available to choose from.
The Platinum Assessment from Echelon Health is the most adept at diagnosing a wide range of illnesses. In fact, we can identify up to 92% and 95% of the preventable causes of death in men and women, respectively, using the Platinum Assessment.
The following is a complete list of scans that are part of the Platinum Assessment:
- Medical Questionnaire
- Blood Test
- ECG
- CT Aorta
- CT Heart
- CT Coronary Angiogram
- CT Chest
- CT Pelvis
- CT Virtual Colonoscopy
- CT Bone Density
- EOS
- CT Upright Skeleton
- MRI Brain
- MRI Cerebral Artery Angiogram
- MRI Carotid Artery Angiogram
- MRI Prostate
- Ultrasound Thyroid
- Ultrasound Testes/Ovaries
- Digital Mammogram
- Full Body Mole Screen
- Final consultation
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact our team. We will always be delighted to help you and answer any questions you might have
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