What are the items of routine physical examination?

What we often call a routine physical examination is essentially a basic "operational inspection" of the body without expensive special examinations. It is a basic package that ordinary healthy people choose every year. It covers four major directions: basic physical signs, blood and body fluid screening, basic imaging, and basic organ function. It can basically screen out 80% of common and high-incidence basic problems.

The first thing you do when you first enter the physical examination center is usually a physical examination. The nurse will measure your height and weight, calculate your BMI, and measure your blood pressure and heart rate. The doctor will then use a stethoscope to listen to your heart and lungs, and feel for abnormal swelling of the thyroid gland and superficial lymph nodes. Many people think this part is just a formality, but it is not. Last year, I helped my distant cousin read the physical examination report. When the surgeon touched his neck, he found a raised nodule on his thyroid gland. He was advised to do a special ultrasound on the spot. The final diagnosis was that it was a type 3 benign nodule. It only took half a year of follow-up, which saved the trouble of having to wait until it gets bigger and requires surgery.

Drawing several tubes of blood and keeping urine and stool samples is the core content of blood and body fluid screening. The three common routines of blood routine, urine routine, and stool routine that everyone often hears are here. Whether there is anemia, bacterial and viral infection, early kidney damage, urinary tract infection, or even a small amount of bleeding in the digestive tract can be detected through these items. First, there was a young man born in 1995 in my department who gave up the project last year because he thought it was troublesome to keep stool samples. This year he decided to keep it during the physical examination, and it was found to be positive for occult blood. A further colonoscopy found two very early benign intestinal polyps. They were removed on the spot and they were fine. He himself was afraid that if it was delayed for another two years, it might become malignant.

Chest X-rays and abdominal B-ultrasounds taken after blood is drawn are basic imaging items. Chest X-rays mainly screen for obvious inflammation, nodules, and shadows in the lungs. Abdominal B-ultrasounds can scan all abdominal organs such as liver, gallbladder, spleen, pancreas, and kidneys. Women’s packages generally include additional breast and gynecological B-ultrasounds, and men’s include prostate B-ultrasounds. These are all items that can do big things for a small amount of money. There are different voices in the industry regarding the role of chest X-rays. Many people think that the resolution of chest X-rays is low, so it is better to just pay for low-dose lung CT. In fact, this depends on the group. For ordinary young people who have no family history of lung cancer and do not smoke for a long time, the radiation dose of chest X-rays is lower and can screen out most obvious lesions. It is indeed sufficient. However, if they are high-risk groups, it is still recommended to switch to low-dose CT.

The rest of the basic biochemical indicators such as liver and kidney function, blood lipids, blood sugar, and uric acid are also standard for routine physical examinations. They can be detected in the few tubes of blood drawn before. Nowadays, young people often stay up late and like to drink milk tea and eat takeaways. The probability of getting red in these items is particularly high. If an abnormality is found, don’t panic. Most of them can return to the normal range by adjusting their living habits for two or three months and then checking again. There is no need to scare yourself.