Cancer Screening & Prevention
Cancer screening and prevention
Cancer screening tests can help find cancer before symptoms appear. When abnormal cells are found early, it may be easier to treat or cure you. Some tests may find pre-cancer cells, which usually allow treatment to prevent cancer.
Here at A&A Women’s Health we strictly follows national guidelines to recommend screening tests. Recommending a screening test does not mean that you have cancer. Screening tests are done when you have no cancer symptoms.
Screening tests include the following:
History and Physical exam - a history of your health habits, past illnesses and treatments helps determine what screening tests to order. An exam of the body to check general signs of health, including checking for signs of disease, such as lumps or anything else that seems unusual, allows us to detect cancer early
Laboratory tests - medical procedures that test samples of tissue, blood, urine or other substances in the body, looking for cancer or pre-cancer cells, help determine cancer directly or indirectly
Imaging procedures - procedures that take pictures of areas inside the body
Genetic tests - tests that look for certain gene changes that are linked to some types of cancer.
Risks
All tests have risks and not all screening tests are helpful. It is important to know the risks of tests and whether it has been proven to decrease the chance of dying from cancer.
Some screening tests can cause serious problems.
False-positive test results are possible.
False-negative test results are possible.
Discovering cancer may not improve your health or help you live longer.
Some cancers may not cause symptoms or become life-threatening, but if found by a screening test, they may be treated. Although we have been studying cancers for decades, it is still impossible to predict with any exactitude whether treating a cancer would help you live longer than if no treatment were given. All cancer treatments for cancer have side effects.
For some cancers, finding and treating cancer early does not improve the chance of a cure or help you live longer.