At the start of a new year, many are promising to live healthier lives. However, this means not only a balanced diet, regular exercise, abandonment of harmful habits (smoking, alcohol consumption), but also to live a more health-conscious life, including performing various screening tests. According to experts, minor serious diseases diagnosed in time are much easier to cure and treat. Therefore, screening tests are important to detect cardiovascular diseases and malignancies as early as possible.

The question arises as to why these two groups of diseases mentioned above are the focus of screening. Presumably because these diseases affect most people in Hungary and are responsible for two-thirds of all deaths in Hungary.

“The human body needs attention. Just as we regularly maintain our car and service it every year, so we should do the same with our own bodies. We should attend the recommended screenings every year, even if we have no health complaints, ”said Dr. Lilla Kardos, Chief Medical Officer of Affidea Hungary.

49 percent of deaths are caused by cardiovascular diseases, so in 2019, about 64,000 people died in Hungary. Unfortunately, the Hungarian population suffers from high blood pressure of 30 percent, and an average of 22,000 people have a heart attack each year, while another 2,000 have a stroke.

These data also show the great need for continuous cardiovascular screening. This is usually the job of your internal medicine or cardiologist. Age is usually prepared by a large laboratory from which possible risk factor tests can be assessed (Such as: uric acid, blood sugar levels, blood fat levels, etc.). Blood sampling should be supplemented with exercise and resting ECG, blood pressure monitoring, cardiac ultrasound, and other targeted examinations as appropriate.

As improper lifestyle (obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking) can be felt around the age of 40, so above all, general cardiovascular screening is always required.

If you have not played sports before, want to learn regular exercise in the new year, consult your doctor beforehand, especially if you have recently had a Covid-19 infection. The latter can cause a number of cardiovascular complications.

The second most serious group of serious diseases is malignant neoplasms. Eight thousand men and ten thousand women are diagnosed with skin each year, and screening is available from the age of 35-40 as part of a recommended dermatological examination. The second most common type of tumor, lung cancer, affects nearly 6,000 men and 4,200 women, and screening here is not a function of age, but is primarily recommended for smokers. Low-dose chest CT scans of lung cancer screening can detect the abnormality at a very early stage, giving the patient a much better chance of recovery. In the third place in the list of test cases in men is a malignant tumor of the prostate with 4600 cases per year, this urological clinic is screened manually and in the laboratory, which can be supplemented with ultrasound and, if necessary, MRI. Breast cancer is diagnosed annually at 8,400 ladies, and its basic screening method is x-ray mammography. Also a very common disease is colon cancer, which affects nearly 8,000 people a year, and screening can be done by CT colonoscopy or endoscopic colonoscopy, and this test is recommended every 4 to 5 years over the age of 45, and more often depending on the results.

If someone has a malignancy in their family, they should pay special attention to screening for the disease, which began 5 to 10 years earlier, depending on the type of tumor, as it was diagnosed in the family member.