Health Screening

Medical screening is the process of diagnosing a disease in an otherwise healthy individual before the symptoms occur. The benefits of early diagnosis are that a disease can be treated earlier before it becomes complicated and results in a better outcome. The disadvantages of screening are that there are a small percentage of false positives (diagnosing the disease when in actual fact the patient does not have it), false negatives (missing the diagnosis when the patient actually has the disease) and also the anxiety of being diagnosed with a disease.

There are many different packages for health screening in hospitals and private medical labs. This is what they call "executive health screenings". Some centres also have specially designed packages for women and older people. Usually, a doctor will be on hand for consultation and to get any medical history from you. He/She will then proceed to examine you. Then they will proceed with the investigations such as blood tests, urine tests, chest x-rays, ECGs, Echocardiogram and more.

For routine blood tests, what they check for are:

Full blood count - to check the levels of heamoglobin, platelets and white cells in your body. Basically, this will tell you if you have enough blood in your body (anaemia), any signs of infection and if you have sufficient platelets in your body for clotting.

Renal function test - to check for levels of salt in your body ie. Sodium, Potassium, Chloride. Also to check if your kidneys are functioning well (Serum Creatinine, Urea).

Liver function test - to check if your liver function is normal and if you have enough protein (albumin) in your body. Also can tell if you have jaundice or any liver enzyme/cellular abnormality.

Coagulation profile - to check if your blood clotting mechanism is functioning normally (INR/PT/APTT).

Fasting Blood Glucose – for diagnosis of diabetes mellitus.

Lipid profile – to look at levels of cholesterol (HDL – good /LDL – bad) and triglycerides.

Tumour markers - these are what labs promote the most. Not very sensitive and even if it is raised as it does not mean that the patient has cancer. It is used as a guide in diagnosis of certain cancers. The results should be correlated with clinical findings and with other investigations. Egs: AFP for liver cancer, CEA for colon cancer, CA125 for ovarian cancer, CA19-9 for pancreas cancer, PSA for prostate cancer, Thyroglobulin for thyroid cancer, CA153 for advanced breast and lung cancer.

Blood type and rhesus compatibility - basically telling you your blood type (A/B/O) and whether it is rhesus positive/negative.

ESR/CRP - marker for inflammation. Not very specific.

Uric acid - for diagnosis of gout

Serum Calcium - to check levels of calcium in the body.

Serum T3/T4/TSH - to check levels of thyroid hormones in the body. For diagnosis of hyper or hypothyroidism.

H.Pylori serology – to detect the presence of H.Pylori, a bacteria which causes gastritis and also a risk factor for stomach cancer.

Infectious Disease screen – to check for Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV.

Urinalysis - to check the urine for protein, bacteria, blood and cells.

ECG (EKG) – to check your heart beat (60 – 100 per minute is normal), heart rhythm (regular or irregular), check for any heart block, check for any angina or ischaemic heart disease.

Echocardiogram – to check if the heart is pumping normally, to look for any problems with the heart muscle, to look at the ventricular function, to look for any heart valvular abnormality.

Mammogram - to detect presence of suspicious breast lumps for diagnosis of breast cancer.