By Elizabeth Cloutman

Photo by Joe Hu, Town Crier

Three-dimensional body scans may help find hidden medical conditions

While CT scans have been used for medical diagnosis for the past 20 years, the concept of scanning the torso of a person who has no obvious medical conditions or symptoms is a more recent concept. The whole-body scan is a procedure that has yet to gain widespread acceptance among doctors and one for which health insurance carriers do not currently compensate. Yet some who have undergone a whole-body scan have said they appreciate either knowing that they are in good health or that they have learned about a serious medical condition before it became life-threatening.

Physician Richard Provines, a radiologist at CTSi in Mountain View, explained when a body scan is appropriate, how the procedure is done and what it can reveal. He also discussed why the procedure has been both criticized and lauded.

“We want to emphasize that this is a screening exam, and not an appropriate test when looking for a specific diagnosis,” Provines said. A whole-body scan is appropriate for people over age 40, with follow-up scans every four to five years for those in good health.

He said the procedure is particularly useful for screening for beginning stages of lung cancer for those at high risk for the disease - smokers and those who have secondary exposure to smoke. “Lung cancer has a five-year survival rate of only 14 percent,” he noted. “We think they will have a better chance if it’s detected earlier.”

CTSi uses a helical (spiral) CT scanner to produce three-dimensional images of the torso, including the internal organs. The radiation exposure is about one-third to one-half that of a conventional CT exam.

The procedure takes about 12 minutes. The CT scanner images the heart and blood vessels that supply it.

The procedure includes a bone-density screening that can reveal osteoporosis, a common cause of bone fractures in older adults, particularly women.

A whole-body scan can also reveal small growths in the thyroid, abdominal and pelvic organs.

It can also reveal gallstones, kidney stones and abdominal aortic aneurysms, bulging weaknesses in blood vessels that can potentially rupture and become life-threatening.

One of the most common cancers in people over age 50 is colon cancer, often curable if discovered early. The traditional examination is the colonoscopy, in which a physician examines the colon using a fiberoptic scope. Provines believes that the traditional colonoscopy is still the “gold standard” for discovering cancerous growths and small polyps before they turn cancerous, but noted that some patients may avoid the exam altogether because they fear the invasiveness and possible discomfort involved.

For these patients, opting for a CT virtual colonoscopy may be a good choice.

Some doctors have also said small findings uncovered during the whole-body scan may not warrant medical treatment and may unnecessarily alarm a patient.

Provines said his Mountain View facility has already found an early kidney cancer, generally an asymptomatic disease until the later incurable stage; several lung cancer nodules; and an abdominal aortic aneurysm that the patient’s physician was keeping watch on.

“I hope down the line, when more data is analyzed on the results of the whole-body scan, we’ll have a better idea of how worthwhile it is - in the screening of lung cancer, for example,” Provines said.