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Prevention – The Better Medicine
Every stage in one’s life holds different dangers and brings with it changes, problems or diseases. However, almost every disease can be cured if noticed early enough. This is due to the vast number of treatment options on offer at an early stage, which is why a preventive examination is the better medicine – even, if you do not have any present complaints.
Even a simple blood test gives the medic a chance to draw conclusions regarding the efficiency of many of the organs by comparing the individual values with the reference values. These are average values which apply to the majority of healthy humans. Significant aberrations from the reference values can point to a disease.
High-tech diagnostic procedures do a good job in early diagnosis, too. The digital mammography, for example, is very significant for women because 8-10% of all women fall victim to breast cancer at some time during their life – mainly between the ages of 45 and 50, as well as between 60 and 65.
Similarly, for the detection of bowel cancer there are trend-setting procedures available nowadays. The virtual colonoscopy, for example, is not painful and delivers extremely reliable results. This is reassuring because bowel cancer is the second most common cancerous cause of death in Germany with approximately 52,000 incidences and 31,000 deaths per year. Annually, 35 in every 100,000 people fall ill with it. At an early stage, bowel cancer has an excellent chance of being cured.
The malignant melanoma also heals very well if found at an early stage, yet it is still the most dangerous form of skin cancer. Per year, approximately 6,900 people get diagnosed with it in Germany. And the number of incidences is increasing rather worryingly. Seeing a dermatologist can keep the patient suitably informed, especially when you consider that it is very difficult for the layperson to differentiate between a healthy birthmark and black skin cancer?
Glaucoma is also very malicious. 1% of the German population suffers from it, the majority of whom do not even realise it. However, glaucoma is one of the most common causes of blindness. It affects mainly the elderly: within the age group of 70 to 80-year-olds, the disease is ten times as common as it is amongst 30 to 40-year-olds.
That’s probably enough figures for the time being – your time would be better spent picking up the phone and arranging an appointment for your next preventive examination!
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