Combined Heart and Lung (low dose CT scan)
Two in one scan
Criteria for Clinic: Patients 50+ or smokers/former smokers
Heart Disease
More than 165,000 New Zealand adults have heart disease. Every 90 minutes a New Zealander dies from heart disease. Many of these deaths are premature (the person dies too early) and could be prevented.
Lung Cancer
Every year in New Zealand, more people die of lung cancer, than of breast cancer, prostate cancer and melanoma combined.
Lung cancer is New Zealand’s biggest cancer killer with more than 1800 New Zealander's dying from lung cancer every year. Everyday 5 New Zealander's die of lung cancer and another 6 are diagnosed with lung cancer.
Click here to assess your risk of heart and/or lung disease and book your Heart and lung CT.
Click here if you would like information on how to quit smoking.
Our Heart and Lung Health initiative uses a personalized approach, combining a heart check and lung check in one scan, based on an assessment of an individual’s risk profile. We have adopted governance and quality improvement approaches and processes from the NHS ‘Targeted Screening for lung cancer with low dose Computed Tomography’. This has allowed us to utilize a robust framework or governance and quality improvement whilst adapting to the local NZ context.
Personalised Lung Scan
The clinic aims to detect lung cancer at a very early stage — when it's more likely to be cured. By the time lung cancer signs and symptoms develop, the cancer is usually too advanced for curative treatment.
You may need followup after your initial scan, which should ideally be undertaken yearly by people at risk of developing lung cancer. The risk assessment questionnaire provides a personalised risk assessment to determine if the Heart and Lung Clinic is recommended for you.
This risk assessment is based on the results of lung cancer trials in the US, Europe and Asia which found that lung cancer deaths were significantly decreased in people who had annual low-dose CT scans. The risk assessment has been carefully adapted to be relevant to New Zealand.
Personalised Heart Scan
A heart scan, or coronary calcium scan, can measure the amount of calcium-containing plaque in the coronary arteries. A build up of plaque in the arteries can develop slowly over time without any signs or symptoms. Eventually plaque build-up will restrict blood flow to the heart muscle. Plaques can also rupture and cause a heart attack.
The risk assessment questionnaire provides a personalised risk assessment to understand if a heart scan is recommended for you.
The heart risk assessment identifies patients at risk of a cardiovascular event in the next 5-10 years and is based on cardiovascular risk studies from the US, the UK and NZ as well as the CSANZ position statement on coronary calcium scoring. The heart scan is often a once only test but may be repeated after at least 5 years.
Combined Heart and Lung Scan
A combined heart and lung scan is available as your initial test if your personalised risk assessment recommends both scans. The advantage of a combined scan is exposure to less radiation, is more cost-effective and more convenient than two separate scans. Annual follow-up scans are for lung only. If you wish to have either a heart or lung scan only, please discuss this at the time of booking.
Click here to assess your risk of heart and/or lung disease and book your Heart and Lung CT today.