43. Screening and immunization PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR MEDICINE

PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR MEDICINE

43. Screening and immunization

A	Screening Screening is a way of identifying people at increased or greater risk for a condition although they do not yet have any signs or symptoms. In some cases, mass screening – screening large numbers of people – is appropriate, for example in the past for tuberculosis. In other cases, only those with high risk factors, like a family history of conditions such as cancer and diabetes, are screened. However, there are a number of problems with screening. There are always false negatives, cases where a patient has a disease but screening does not identify it. There are also false positives, cases where someone is told they have a disease when in fact they do not. Furthermore, with some diseases, early identification is of no benefit to the patient as there is no treatment available.
B	Common screening test Condition Test Subjects Frequency Neural tube defects and Down’s syndrome risk AFP pregnant women between 16 and 17 weeks Breast cancer mammography women, 50-70 every 3 years Cervical cancer smear test women, 20-60 every 3 years Cardiovascular disease blood cholesterol >40 with high risk factors every year Secondary prevention Cholesterol >4 blood cholesterol patients with heart disease every 6 months Diabetic retinopahy ophthalmoscopy patients with diabetes every year
C	Immunization for travellers

EXERCISES

43.1	Complete the sentences. Look at A,B and C above to help you. 1 ________________ ________________ for heart disease include smoking, high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease. 2 In a small number of cases screening will not identify patients with the early signs of a disease. These are ________________ ________________. 3 Some people without signs of the disease will be wrongly identified as having the disease. These are ________________ ________________. 4 People ________________ ________________ blood or body fluids should be immunized against Hepatitis B.
43.2	Complete the sentences using information from B above. The first one has been done for you. 1 Women aged from 50 to 70 ____should have mammography every three years to check for breast cancer. ___ 2 Patients with heart disease ___________________________________ 3 Women between 20 and 60 ___________________________________ 4 Patients over 40 with high risk factors ___________________________________ 5 Patients with diabetes ___________________________________ 6 Pregnant women ___________________________________
43.3	Which of the immunizations listed in C above would you recommend for the following visitors to South Asia?

Answer key