Will a Full-Body MRI Scan Help You or Hurt You? (NewYorker)

#1

Can anyone here share their experiences with Full-body MRI scans?

Companies like Prenuvo and Ezra will use magnetic resonance imaging to reveal what’s inside you—for a price.

Prenuvo now has nine locations, with plans to open a dozen more; some employers offer free MRI scans as staff perks. The company also has several competitors—most notably Ezra, a New York-based startup that has raised more than twenty-two million dollars. Ezra offers full-body MRIs at prices ranging from a thousand three hundred and fifty dollars to twenty-five hundred dollars, and five-year memberships for seven thousand.

Prenuvo was founded by a man who, like Crownholm, launched companies for a living and was happy to pay a premium for health care. In 2018, Andrew Lacy, a serial tech entrepreneur with an M.B.A. from Stanford, flew to Vancouver to get a whole-body scan from Rajpaul Attariwala, a Canadian radiologist who had purchased his own MRI machine for use on a selective clientele in his private office. (MRI machines typically cost between one and three million dollars.) Lacy later said that when he reviewed the images, “I was just completely floored. Never before in my life had I had such a strong feeling that I was looking at something that was really the future of an industry.” He felt “a tremendous peace of mind just not to worry about what was going on inside my skin.” He realized that others would pay to feel the same way.

Within a few years, Lacy and Attariwala had opened a clinic together in Silicon Valley. Some of the venture capitalists they screened became investors. Prenuvo ultimately raised more than seventy million dollars; its backers include the 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, the supermodel Cindy Crawford, and the former Google chairman Eric Schmidt. Prenuvo’s growth is, in part, a feat of marketing.

Full article (no paywall) here: https://archive.ph/zv3C0

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#2

I had one in 2017 as a result of going to the ER for what turned out to be a GERD attack. They injected a drug to improve contrast. I was actually surprised that nothing much was found. I knew I had BPH but the doc said the scan didn’t show any problem. By the time all that was done I was feeling fine. Of course, they wanted to do various other things to examine and treat the GERD. I said no thanks and checked myself out. After visiting a more holistic oriented physician I made some dietary changes. Poof, GERD gone!

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#3

Matthew Davenport, a radiologist who co-directs a cancer center at the University of Michigan […] guesses that the average person would benefit from a full-body MRI less than 0.1 per cent of the time—whereas “you have something happen to you that is expensive, annoying, psychologically harmful, or physically harmful maybe five or ten per cent of the time.”

That’s why I haven’t pursued these tests. Of course, it is a strong argument to say that it could also save your life, so isn’t it worth all the downsides? Probably not for me, but maybe in 10 years when I’m 70 years old (when the odds of early cancers are higher), the tech is better, and the cost might be lower.

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#4

I had Prenuvo’s whole-body scan done last year. Although there was one unexpected finding, related to my brain, I felt reassured by the results. The scan also helped me better understand the source of my back pain.

My back pain did make it very difficult to lie still in the supine position for ~75 minutes.

No regrets. I plan to get another one in a few years.

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#5
#6

Excellent information RapaAdin. You, as usual, open our eyes for this aprouch: Meds , vitamins, phisical exercise, etc; its good but, alone, its not insurance for longevity and wellness. I will add an anual MRI scan as my longevity walk…

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#7

A full-body MRI can reveal hidden killers. Do we want to know?

Like many emerging technologies, this one can improve our lives, make us miserable or both. Nobody knows yet which it will be.

Nine out of 10 doctors agree: I am a highly creative hypochondriac.

Using medical expertise I obtained from the internet, I have successfully misdiagnosed myself with, among other things: heart disease, pancreatitis, liver and kidney disorders, a blood platelet deficiency, malignancies of the colon and prostate, Lyme disease and memory loss (although I don’t recall exactly when that was). The pain I sometimes get when I sleep on my side? Must be cancer. Headache after a hard workout? Brain aneurysm. My tombstone will say, “I told you so.”

So, naturally, when I first heard the longevity gurus touting full-body MRI scans a couple of years ago, I was ready to sign up. Here was a chance to examine my body from cerebrum to metatarsal and locate abnormal spots as tiny as 2 millimeters. Never again would I have to conjure up imaginary infirmities. I could now reassure myself that I was healthy — or prove beyond all doubt that I was gravely ill.

But it’s a bit more complicated than that, both for the worried well like me and for the many others who don’t share my knack for self-misdiagnosis.

The new technology that powers these full-body MRIs — something called diffusion-weighted imaging (don’t ask me to explain) combined with the pattern recognition of artificial intelligence — has the potential to save our lives by revealing budding cancers, silent aneurysms and other hidden would-be killers before they become deadly.Ask The Post AIDive deeper

But the scans cost $2,500 a pop and insurance won’t pay. Worse, for every cancer these MRIs find, they produce a slightly greater number of false positives that require a biopsy, with the potential for infection and bleeding and emotional distress. Even when the scans don’t produce a false positive, they almost always come up with some vague and disconcerting abnormality.

Like many emerging technologies, this one can improve our lives, make us miserable, or both. Nobody yet knows which it will be, because we’re the first humans to have the option of examining our innards with such clarity. Will we feel better after viewing our insides? Or will we become anxious about things we hadn’t even thought to worry about?

Part of living has always been in the mystery, in not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Now, because of sophisticated imaging, genome sequencing and other revolutionary screening tools, we can have predictability, or at least the illusion of it. But do we want that?

The American College of Radiology says we do not. Its still-current 2023 statement says there is not “sufficient evidence” to recommend full-body screening, cautioning that the scan could lead to needless testing and expense.

But David Larson, chair of ACR’s Commission on Quality and Safety, told me that could change as more data comes in. “When people ask me, ‘Would you recommend it?’ I would say it depends on your tolerance for ambiguity,” he said, giving the example of somebody found to have a borderline aortic aneurysm who is advised to wait and monitor it. If “that won’t keep you up at night, then I wouldn’t necessarily recommend against it.”Ask The Post AIDive deeper.

Read the full story: A full-body MRI can reveal hidden killers. Do we want to know?