Can Full-Body MRI Scans Help Detect Health Problems?
Maria Menounos, a journalist and actress, recently advocated for full-body MRI scans to detect medical conditions. She uncovered a 1.5-inch mass in her pancreas through a full-body MRI after CT scans and other tests failed to find a problem. The biopsy confirmed the mass to be a stage II pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, which led her to undergo surgery to remove the cancer, her spleen, and 17 lymph nodes. Menounos is now on a mission to lobby insurance companies to cover full-body MRI scans for everyone.
Medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, and the FDA do not recommend whole-body scans because of the potential harm. Private companies offer full-body scans to detect various medical conditions, including early-stage cancers. However, these scans pose the risk of false-positive results that can lead to anxiety-inducing and unnecessary follow-up tests and procedures.
Dr. Christopher Hess, Chairman of the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco, notes that the chance of a full-body MRI scan finding a serious condition that is treatable is much lower than the risk of dying in a car accident, drowning while swimming, or seriously injuring oneself by falling down the stairs. Additionally, full-body scans can expose people to radiation, which can increase the risk of cancer later in life.
Medical organizations advise against whole-body scans for early detection of cancer in people without symptoms, risk factors, or a family history of disease because there is not enough research to suggest that they are effective. However, in exceptional cases such as Menounos’, where routine scans fail to detect severe medical conditions, full-body MRI scans may prove useful.
Blood tests may be a more useful cancer screening tool for the average person, as they are easier to conduct than MRIs in terms of time and cost. Several blood tests, including mammograms and colonoscopies, have already received FDA approval.
Engaging Piece:
While full-body MRI scans may sound like a convenient and proactive measure to detect health problems early on, the risks of false-positive results and unnecessary follow-up procedures must be taken into consideration. Medical organizations caution against the use of full-body scans, particularly for people without symptoms, risk factors, or a family history of disease. Instead, they recommend pursuing more practical and less risky screening tools such as blood tests, mammograms, and colonoscopies that have received FDA approval.
Additionally, it is crucial to acknowledge that the fear of illness and uncertainty surrounding one’s health can be overwhelming. Seeking temporary relief through full-body scans, even as a “worried healthy” person, may exacerbate anxiety and cause more stress. Instead, seeking therapy to develop a greater tolerance for uncertainty and gaining confidence in one’s ability to handle anything, including severe illness, can provide long-term benefits and alleviate fears.
Moreover, healthcare providers must work to increase awareness and accessibility to preventative healthcare screenings, particularly for communities that experience disparities in healthcare services. Incorporating culturally sensitive and inclusive practices that address and eliminate the systemic barriers to care is essential to promoting the overall health and wellbeing of the population.
In conclusion, while full-body MRI scans may seem like a proactive approach to detect health issues, it is crucial to understand the potential harm and risks involved. Adopting practical and less risky screening tools such as blood tests and mammograms and investing in preventative healthcare screenings for marginalized communities can promote overall health and wellbeing. Seeking therapy to develop a greater tolerance for uncertainty and alleviate fears surrounding one’s health can also provide long-term benefits.
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June 2, 2023 – Last month, journalist and actress Maria Menounos said People who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after undergoing a full-body MRI.
The scan had detected a 1.5-inch mass in her pancreas after CT scans and other tests could not find a problem. A biopsy confirmed the mass to be a stage II pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. In February, she underwent surgery to remove the cancer, part of her pancreas, her spleen and 17 lymph nodes.
“I need people to know that there are places they can go to detect things early,” said Menounos, 44, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017 and type 1 diabetes last summer. People. “You can’t let fear get in the way. I had that moment where I thought I was lost, but I’m okay because I figured this out early enough.”
Now, Menounos mission is to convince insurance companies to cover full-body MRIs for everyone. But medical organizations, as well as experts in oncology, radiology and health psychology, say the evidence does not yet show that these imaging procedures can give people the peace of mind they want or the information they need to prevent health problems. .
“We believe that a world where detection is personalized and adaptable over time is a goal to aspire to. At this time, there are specific imaging screening recommendations for people with specific inherited gene mutations, such as BRCA2,” saying Dr William Dahut, chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, referring to a mutation known to cause breast cancer. “However, this is different from a full-body MRI.”
MRIs generally focus on one organ or area of the body and require referrals from qualified medical professionals. But now, private companies, at your request and for a high price, will scan your entire body, even if you have no symptoms or concerns.
Use of whole body scans powerful magnets and radio waves to produce 3D images of your organs, tissues, and skeletal system without the use of radiation. companies like prénuvo, VitalScanand simonone they say their scans, which cost between $500 and $2,500, can detect hundreds of medical conditions, including early-stage cancers.
The problem is that full-body scans carry the risk of false-positive results that can lead to unnecessary and potentially invasive follow-up tests and procedures that are not only expensive but also anxiety-inducing, he said. Dr Christopher HessChairman of the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco.
The chance that a whole-body MRI will find a serious condition that is treatable is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident (1 in 93 people over a lifetime, according to the National Security Council), drowning while swimming (1 in 1,006 people) or seriously injuring themselves by falling down stairs (37.8 in 10,000 people in the United States), Hess said. Also, the problems that these scans often uncover tend to be on the “spectrum of normal” that usually don’t require treatment, such as small brain aneurysms.
Additional tests with CT and PET scans can also expose people to radiation that can increase your risk of cancer Later in life, the American Academy of Family Physicians said in a statement that it discouraged the use of whole-body scans for early detection of cancer in people who do not have symptoms. Some procedures could also cause complications, Hess said. For example, a biopsy of a small kidney lesion, which would normally not need testing, could cause internal bleeding.
The American College of Radiology also opposes the practice. “Till the date, there is no documented evidence that whole-body screening is cost-effective or effective in prolonging life” in people without symptoms, risk factors, or a family history of disease, the group said in a statement published in April. The FDA issued a similar statement in 2017 regarding full-body CT scans, saying no evidence indicates that such procedures provide “more benefit than harm.”
Exceptional case
Experts agree that the Menounos case is the rare exception to the rule. Although CT scans and other tests appeared normal, he continued to have severe abdominal pain and diarrhea. The additional imaging he was seeking “was certainly logical and necessary,” Dahut said, although an MRI of his belly would have sufficed. Still, early stage pancreatic cancers can often be hard to find on routine scans.
Researchers have estimated that tumor detection is less than 2% in people without symptoms who undergo a whole-body MRI. But the use of scans as a preventative health measure is evolving, said Resten Imaoka, MD, a musculoskeletal radiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
A 2021 study published in the European Journal of Radiology found that a third of 576 whole-body MRIs showed “clinically relevant findings”, 2.6% of which were cancers. Imaoka says these numbers are “considerably higher” than previous research, suggesting that the scans could be used with other screening methods for people without symptoms. (The study also found that 16 people studied, 2.8%, had false-negative results, scans that initially revealed no cause for concern, five of which turned out to be cancer.)
Whole-body MRIs may be useful and even preferred in certain circumstances, Imaoka said. People who have Li-Fraumeni syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that makes people more likely to get many different types of cancer, may benefit from scans because their entire bodies are threatened by the disease. These scans are also useful for multiple myeloma screeningbut not so much for early detection of colon, skin, breast, thyroid, lung and most other cancers, Hess said.
Blood tests may be a more useful cancer screening tool for the average person, Hess and Dahut said, because they’re easier to perform than MRIs. Several have already been approved by the FDA.although most are used in conjunction with other screening procedures such as mammograms and colonoscopies.
If you’re in good health and find that you can’t stop thinking about the possibility of getting sick, which puts you in the “worried healthy” category, seeking procedures like whole-body MRIs may only provide temporary relief and perhaps more stress. said Natalie Dattilo, PhD, a clinical psychologist and instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
“It does not solve the root of the problem. In therapy, you work to develop a greater tolerance for uncertainty, become more comfortable with the unknown and potentially unpleasant, while gaining confidence in your ability to handle anything, even serious illness,” he said. “The fear does not come from the feared thing itself, although it can certainly be disturbing, but from the fear of not knowing, or from the uncertainty and unpredictability of it.”
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20230602/you-probably-dont-need-a-full-body-mri?src=RSS_PUBLIC
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