flickr.com/ photos/ donmeliton/ 2441292625

Sigh. . . the marketers do a very good job. They market for self-referral.  “The price is coming down. . . “ “Wouldn’t everyone like to know. . .? “  But, there are significant risks and I imagine it would be the rare person that would be relieved after a whole body scan.  In fact 80% of older patients will find at least one abnormality with the mean being three findings per patient.

Here are the risks:

• Detection of “incidentalomas” which is what we call insignificant things in the body–found incidentally, but now we need to decide if we should biopsy or remove.
• High false-negative rate (the scan misses something important)
• High false-positive rate (for example, we find old scar tissue which looks like something concerning)
• Increased rate of overdiagnosis
• Overexposure to radiation (500-1000 times higher than routine chest x ray)
• Physical damage caused by objects moving in soft tissue during magnetic imaging
• Unnecessary examinations or biopsies
• Unnecessary exposure to intravenous contrast (like barium)
• Unnecessary patient anxiety (and who can blame you. . . you now know about physical conditions that may never affect you. . . or they might)

Here are some organizations recommending against whole body scanning

• American Heart Association
• American College of Radiology
• American association of Physicists in Medicine
• Health Physics Society
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• U.S. Preventive Services Task Force

Consider what information you’ll know that you can’t ever NOT know.