Full Body Scan

The full body scan is a quick and painless scan of the torso – excluding the head and lower extremities – to screen the most important organs (unlike a normal CT scan which only examines desired parts of the body). A CT scanner is used for this procedure so much of the preparation and methods are the same. To prepare for the scan, the patient will be asked to drink a contrast liquid one hour prior to the scan. The scan itself only takes a few minutes and the patient remains fully clothed. The full body scan can detect such things as heart disease (calcified plaque built up in the coronary arteries); tumors in the lungs, ovaries, liver or other organs of the body which may be cancerous; kidney stones, cysts, and many other abnormalities. Used mainly as a preventative procedure, a full body scan can detect early-stage cancer and heart disease, sometimes before patients have even shown symptoms.