Health screenings for every budget

Early health screening is more important than ever, especially as cutting-edge technology makes it easier, faster and more accurate to catch diseases before symptoms appear.

- Chantal Sajan

Early detection also dramatically improves treatment outcomes, lowers healthcare costs and saves lives, particularly for illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.

Besides high-tech screening tools in the private sector, which can cost up to $4,000 for a single session, there is also a range of subsidized tests at public clinics and hospitals, which cost as low as $5 for eligible individuals and are free for a majority of seniors.

CUTTING-EDGE MULTI-CANCER EARLY DETECTION TEST

One of the latest tests available in Singapore is the LucenceInsight Multi-Cancer Early Detection (MCED) test, available at local healthtech company Novi Health. It is able to identify cancers at earlier stages and helps reduce extra invasive procedures.

The test detects early signals of five prevalent cancers - lung, thyroid, liver, pancreatic and colorectal cancer - which are often missed in routine check-ups.

Novi Health runs a specialist clinic in Robinson Road, offering a range of packages starting at $319, which give a snapshot of an individual's core health through 70 biomarkers for diseases such as diabetes and cholesterol.

This goes up to $3,800 for the LucenceInsight MCED screening, which tests for up to 50 types of cancer with just one blood draw. It takes about 12 days for the results to be analyzed.

MCED tests analyze DNA fragments in the blood to detect circulating tumor DNA (cancer signals), with a low false positive rate of 1 per cent, meaning that for every 100 people without cancer who take the test, only one will incorrectly receive a result suggesting that cancer might be present. This is compared with a high false positive rate of up to 40 per cent for conventional tumor marker tests, says Dr Tan.