Could cancer scans save lives?

I HAVE great sympathy and understanding with the reader supporting cancer check-up scans at supermarkets (Letters). Mine was detected accidentally after I had a car accident. I was taken to hospital for X-rays and cancer was spotted. I didn’t have any symptoms. Friends say I had a guardian angel that night. Early diagnosis is a must, so don’t be scared to have a scan. If cancer is discovered, it can be treated. The doctors and nurses look after you well, and you are checked out for five years afterwards.

Mrs YVONNE POWERS, Hillingdon, Middlesex. I AM surprised that CT scans will be available in supermarket car parks. Private clinics were advised by government health experts not to carry out these tests on healthy people on a ‘just-in-case’ basis. In fact, CT scans should be undertaken if an illness is suspected because they can give off high amounts of radiation. Recommendations from the Committee On Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment said: ‘There is a real danger that the risks could outweigh the benefits.’ And Stanford University School Of Medicine in the U.S. found that DNA damage and cell death can occur after CT scanning. NAME SUPPLIED, Ruislip, Middlesex.