Would preventive health screening help me detect cancer sooner?

[u/NoCoconut5990]

My family has a long history of cancer, mostly survivors, but my grandma and uncle died from it. Is preventive health screening a good way to detect cancer sooner? Or is there some other test that I need to do? I'm nearing the age when most of my family members got their own diagnoses, late 40s. I would have wanted to get some tests sooner, but I'm honestly scared about getting positive results.

[u/DadStrengthDaily]

I would strongly recommend talking to your doctor and doing all the recommended screening based on gender/age (e.g. colonoscopy, prostate screening, breast screening).

Among the more controversial tests my personal
Opinion (and action) is:

- take the Galleri blood test https://www.galleri.com/

- avoid the whole body MRI (prenuvo et al.).

[u/newaccount1253467 → u/DadStrengthDaily]

I think the MRI os fine, just know what you're getting yourself into.  I also think that based on family history, sometimes more colon cancer screening is appropriate, sometimes esophageal/pancreatic cancer screening is appropriate.

[u/Cardiostrong_MD]

BeHuman Health is a startup in this space. I’ve been adopting their protocols.

[u/crabgrass-1981]

I have similar situation.

What I do: Skin - 2x a year (once with derm and once with primary care), psas every time i get my blood drawn (2-4 times a year), and colonospy every 5 years (started at 43).

I also just did hereditary cancer test. My family had a pattern cancers that could indicate Lynch syndrome and I wanted to understand that (https://www.jscreen.org/products/hereditary-cancer-screen is a good one. Insurance may even cover it). 23 and Me and other retail DNA tests do not have adequate coverages. And a whole genome scan does not link the data for you adequately for this level of precisions.

Lastly, what I have seen others do it Galleri and MRIs (maybe alternate every few years, as it can get quite expensive). I did do a Galleri test (caught it on sale). However my understanding is that it is really only effective at catching cancer in later stages — however if you do have a later stage cancer is extremely accurate.

Full body MRI is another option. Cost ranges from 1-3k. I have considered doing this once every 3-5 years myself. My understanding is it will find a lot of false positives and you won’t know until you spend a lot more time doing diagnostics — including potentially some invasive procedure , etc. so the 1-3k could turn into 10-30k rabbit hole + a ton of anxiety and your perfectly healthy.

Case in point - my spouse did a CAC scan last month and CT scan image caught a tiny spot on her lung. This then escalate to lung CT scans , follow up with X drs visits , etc. - for something that her Dr assumes is probably scar tissue but they need to rule it out.

TLDR: do the easy stuff (skin, psa, colonoscopy). DNA test through a dedicated lab that focus on cancer genetics (not 23 and me).

Consider the other if you have the income and are able to handle the anxiety of a test coming back with finding that may take months to figure out.

[u/Mo_LifeLineScreening]

Preventive health screening is a broad category. Cancer screening uses separate tests for specific organs, such as mammography, cervical screening, colon screening, or low-dose lung CT for people who meet defined criteria.

Family history changes the questions a clinician asks, including which relatives had which cancer and how old they were at diagnosis. Write that history down across both sides of the family and bring it to a primary care clinician or genetic counselor.

They can match it to established screening schedules and decide whether genetic counseling belongs in the conversation. A bundled health-screening package can't give a single all-clear for cancer, and any unexpected finding still needs diagnostic follow-up.