Hanoi French Hospital proposes a Respiratory Check-Up which includes a consultation with a lung specialist, a CT-scan of the thorax, a pulmonary function test and related blood tests. — Photo courtesy of Hanoi French Hospital

“To give the breath of life”, as without breathing oxygen life is not possible. Are you getting enough? We all depend on our lungs for survival, and healthy living!

The lungs’ main role is to bring in air from the atmosphere and extract oxygen and pass it into our bloodstream. From there, it circulates to all the organs and tissues of our body. At the same time, the blood collects carbon dioxide waste which the lungs push back out during exhalation, as they also filter toxins in the blood and metabolise biochemicals. Lungs work hard for us.

However, along with economic and social development, the air around us has at times become severely polluted. Toxic emissions from factories in and around the city and micro dust from vehicles, etc., make it harder for our lungs to inhale enough oxygen from the air.

Air pollution is a well-known and growing concern in Hà Nội, especially pollution due to particulate matter or PM. In Hà Nội, the most prevalent pollutant is PM2.5, of which the main source is traffic. This is a concern for many habitants of Hà Nội and surrounding areas and northern Việt Nam, particularly for those with increased risks due to smoking or infections, or disease of the lung (also post COVID).

During peaks of air pollution, there are now more people complaining about cough or difficult breathing and there are more respiratory tract infections in children. People living with chronic respiratory or cardiac diseases have increased risk to experience an asthma attack, cardiac attack or cerebral attack.

Breathing polluted air is also dangerous during pregnancy, possibly leading to premature birth and lower birth weight. Children may have slower development of their lungs and may develop asthma and allergies. Adults may develop chronic bronchitis and also lung cancer.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, people have an increased awareness of how essential lungs are for a healthy life. As such, you might want to know how healthy your lungs are.

Hanoi French Hospital proposes a Respiratory Check-Up which includes a consultation with a lung specialist, a CT-scan of the thorax, a pulmonary function test and related blood tests. The outcome of all these will allow us to help you to take action to prevent your lungs becoming sick, or indeed to take action to avoid worsening of a disease.

Thorax low dose CT scan

Low dose CT scan is the latest method of modern spiral CT scan which is very safe as it dramatically minimizes the effects of radiation exposure to patients (it involves a radiation exposure dose approximate 1mSv/exam, equivalent to a classic radiology exam, whereas the normal routine chest CT scan involves about 7mSv). This radiation exposure dose is very low even compared to natural background radiation which is about 3.1 mSv /person/year.

Still low dose CT scan provides excellent diagnostic results. This latest method of CT scan helps to detect pulmo-pleural lesions and other thorax diseases that are not detected by standard chest X-ray, such as early-stage cancer, pneumonia (including viral pneumonia, even caused by COVID-19 (CT scan is used to diagnose COVID-19 pneumonia when RT-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 has not been done), bronchiectasis, emphysema, mediastinal tumors, chest wall tumors, etc.

It can also be used to follow up known lesions, not only helping your doctor compare and evaluate treatment results while minimizing radiation exposure to patients that require multiple control exams.

Thorax low-dose CT scan is safer than normal routine CT scan and gives higher value in diagnosis than standard X-rays. It plays a significant role in screening, detection and follow up treatment outcomes, especially in the context of coronavirus pneumonia spreading all over the world. — Hanoi French Hospital

Should you need further information, please feel free to contact Marketing Department at 024.35771100 or or access our website at www.hfh.com.vn, or email us at contact@hfh.com.vn. Address: 1 Phương Mai, Đống Đa, Hà Nội.