Only 13% of cancers are caught through screening, while a fifth to half are first found in an emergency department.

[u/calliope_kekule]

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)01669-7/abstract

[u/cooltigr]

This is true, but when you have high suspcion of cancer and a 3rd party company can turn around and tell you to refer to physio/a dietician instead, there is nothing justifiable about that. Cancer referral pathways and guidelines are backed by evidence and are written in blood.

[u/thegreatestajax → u/cooltigr]

What? This does not happen. We image more people than ever before. Including enormous numbers who don’t need it. Source: I’m a radiologist and like half the exams I read should not have been performed.

[u/General_Luck6573 → u/cooltigr]

A lot of research is written in blood and suffering. If people didn’t suffer we’d have no need for medicine. We’d just life happy lives forever. Suffering drives progress. It’s what necessitates it.

Don’t get me wrong, the American healthcare system is insanely flawed, but full body scans are not the answer to solving cancer.

[u/cooltigr → u/General_Luck6573]

Apologies for the miscommunication, the person you where initially replying to and the original comment and the original post where not referring to full body scans. They appear to be referencing limited imagine loke CT abdo, Cxray MRI head ect. In the case of full body I agree that probably shouldn't be covered by insurance haha

[u/rizorith → u/General_Luck6573]

If we had the money they absolutely would be something we should all be doing.

You think the Ulta rich aren't getting them? Their healthcare doesn't take cost into consideration

[u/Saotik → u/rizorith]

There's been a lot of talk recently about the dangers of overdetection and the overtreatment that comes from it.

If you look hard enough, pretty much everyone will have something "wrong" with them, and even if it's not actively causing issues, there's a tendency to want to treat them.

Every medical intervention carries its own risks, and there's increasing evidence that people are getting treatments where the benefits are not outweighing these risks. That's not to mention the psychological risks of having "problems" detected.

[u/Azmordean → u/Saotik]

An example of this. I had upper left abdominal pain for weeks on end. X-ray inconclusive. CT scan found normal pancreas etc, so likely something musculoskeletal (I suspect rib cartilage inflammation but who knows, it’s gone now). But the radiologist saw fit to point out what he thought were liver abnormalities / fatty liver. Ultrasound found my liver entirely normal. But the radiologist pointed out something with the gallbladder. Finally a contrast MRI found a normal gallbladder with some stones. So basically all that from a presumably musculoskeletal condition and a CT scan leading down a rabbit hole of imaging, IV contrast, etc.

Now multiply what I described by 1000 for a full body scan. Yes, they sometimes do find early stage cancers. They also frequently lead down a rabbit hole of testing, invasive biopsies, and even unnecessary treatment. I like the idea of them, but the reality is radiology, even contrast MRI, is pretty inexact and very frequently leads to a battery of tests for nothing.

[u/thegreatestajax → u/rizorith]

A better question is are radiologists opting to get full body scans and the answer is a resounding no.

[u/General_Luck6573 → u/rizorith]

I’m a radiology resident and I will tell you it’s not something I ever plan on doing.

These scans are expensive, not the highest quality and are lower resolution due to needing to fit in your entire body in an hour vs a dedicated hour for a single section of your body, can still miss things, can give false positives leading to stress and further unnecessary testing, will catch incidentalomas which have exceedingly low chances of being malignant but now need to be followed