A Lumen health assessment doesn't rely on a single scan. MRI and ultrasound each reveal different things, and using them together builds a fuller picture of your health than either could alone. We asked Dr Syed Babar, a radiology consultant with 20 years' experience in screening programmes and five years working alongside Dr Garry Savin, Medical Director of Lumen, to walk through what each scan does and why they're used side by side. If you're deciding which Lumen package is right for you, this should help you understand what's actually included.
Our main tool is MRI, because it doesn't use X-ray radiation. We also use ultrasound, which includes a carotid Doppler scan to check blood flow to the brain, plus ultrasound of the abdomen and pelvis. In men, we also scan the testes.
It measures how well blood flows from the heart to the brain through the carotid arteries in the neck. We are checking for any changes in the arterial wall, including plaques, which are areas of cholesterol deposits in the vessel wall, and sometimes these can even cause narrowing inside the vessel wall.
A plaque is a thickening of the artery's inner lining. These are not normal, and a healthy artery would not have any plaques. They are made of cholesterol deposits, and these can narrow the vessel bore and reduce blood flow, and it's usually a sign of raised cholesterol or triglycerides, which are fats in the bloodstream. Generally, what is happening in the wall of the carotid arteries is also happening in the other arteries of the body, including the smaller coronary arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle, so the carotid scan is a window into a person's arterial health.
Ultrasound is particularly good at finding stones in the kidneys or gallbladder, which don't always show up as reliably on MRI. Ultrasound is also good at determining if a lump is solid or fluid-filled, which can sometimes add information.
Every Lumen package combines MRI and ultrasound differently. The Lumen 1 is just MRI, the Lumen 2 and 3 combine both.
Costs and appointment length vary accordingly depending on your budget, so it's worth seeing the details before you choose.
MRI is a non-invasive scan that doesn't use radiation, and it can look at almost any organ in the body except the brain. That's what makes it so useful for whole-body screening.
For the brain, we're looking for problems such as tumours and aneurysms, and we also carry out an MRI angiogram, which images the major blood vessels supplying the brain. In the abdomen and pelvis, MRI covers the liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys, bladder and the prostate gland in men and in women, the uterus (womb) and ovaries.
It's used to look specifically at blood vessels. We use it mainly to check for aneurysms in the brain and in the abdominal aorta, the main artery running through the tummy, which can also develop aneurysms. Now we can do this without the need for a contrast injection due to advances in our MRI technology.
An aneurysm is an abnormal widening or swelling of a blood vessel wall. Over time, that widening can increase, and in some cases the vessel wall can rupture. Aneurysms can occur in any artery but typically in the small arteries of the brain and the aorta, which is the largest blood artery in the body. We check these in all of our MRI-based Lumen assessments.
It's a serious medical emergency that can lead to a stroke and, in severe cases, can be fatal. About a third of patients do very well, about a third develop disability, and about a third are fatal. Vascular imaging as part of a health assessment is designed to identify these changes early, while they're still manageable.
Because each has different strengths. MRI doesn't use radiation and is best for the brain, abdomen, pelvis and prostate. Ultrasound is better for checking blood flow through the carotid arteries and for spotting stones in the kidneys and gallbladder. Using both together means we cover the body more comprehensively than either scan could alone.
We use two main tools: a stress echocardiogram, which we carry out here in the clinic, and a CT coronary angiogram, which is a non-invasive scan version of a full coronary angiogram. Our CTCA scan, which is performed in the Lumen 3 assessment, requires a contrast injection in the arm whilst scanning the heart with a state-of-the-art CT scanner in less than one second.
Unlike a conventional angiogram, there's no catheter placed into the heart. Instead, a contrast dye is injected into the bloodstream, which highlights the coronary arteries on the scan. That lets us look for narrowing, plaques, and areas of reduced blood flow to the heart muscle in exquisite detail.
It assesses how well the heart muscle (myocardium) is performing by how well it contracts. This is dependent on blood flow. We carry out an echocardiogram at rest before and after the heart is put under physical stress with exercise, then compare the two scan findings.
There's a well-established link between plaques in the carotid arteries and plaques in the coronary arteries that supply the heart. So a carotid Doppler scan can act as a useful early indicator of cardiovascular risk.
A resting echocardiogram, performed in the Lumen 2 and 3, can assess cardiac function and the heart muscle at rest and examine each heart valve and how it performs in great detail. There are different types of heart disease.
Yes. It can help to detect many different cancers, particularly in the soft tissue organs. The main questions we're looking to answer in men are whether there's a tumour in the prostate, bladder or testes. MRI is particularly effective at identifying changes in the prostate, and prostate imaging forms part of our screening approach.
Ultrasound. It's the most effective tool for identifying any lesion in or around the testes.
Yes, it's included in the Lumen 2 and 3 assessments for male patients, alongside the wider abdominal and pelvic ultrasound. The Lumen 1 includes a physical check of the testes by a doctor, as it is MRI-based.
The main areas we look at are the uterus, cervix, vagina and ovaries. We use a combination of ultrasound and MRI to check for tumours and other changes across these structures.
No single scan tells the whole story. MRI is exceptional at looking inside the brain, abdomen, pelvis and prostate without any radiation, while ultrasound picks up things MRI can miss, from carotid plaques to some kidney stones to changes in the testes. Add cardiac imaging like a stress echo or a CT coronary angiogram and a Lumen health assessment, and you build a genuinely joined-up view of your health, rather than a snapshot of just one system.
The value of this isn't the scans themselves. It's what they make possible: catching an aneurysm, a plaque, or an early tumour while it's still straightforward to act on, rather than waiting for symptoms to appear. That's the thinking behind combining these different types of imaging in the first place. Each Lumen health assessment is designed to be a multisystematic general health assessment in its own right, but the higher the level, the greater the detail.
Every scan in this article - MRI, ultrasound, CT coronary angiogram, echocardiogram - plays a specific role in building a complete picture of your health, and no two people need exactly the same combination. Book a health assessment at Lumen Harley Street to talk through your history and priorities with our clinical team, and find out which scans make sense for you.
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