From the ever excellent Brad Stanfield on full body MRI scans offered to the general public. Perhaps a tell is that Kim Kardashian is  a proponent of these full body MRI’s.

Full-body MRI scans promise something appealing: finding cancer early, without radiation, before symptoms appear. Companies such as Prenuvo market these scans directly to consumers, with celebrity endorsements helping fuel demand. But does finding more disease actually help people live longer?

The article explains why the answer is complicated. Screening can uncover slow-growing cancers that would never cause symptoms or shorten someone’s life—a problem called overdiagnosis. Once discovered, however, these cancers can trigger treatment with real consequences.

South Korea’s thyroid cancer experience illustrates the danger. Widespread ultrasound screening produced a dramatic increase in diagnoses and surgeries, while thyroid cancer mortality remained essentially unchanged. Patients nevertheless experienced surgical complications, including damaged vocal cords and hypoparathyroidism, and many needed lifelong thyroid medication.

Similarly, a large British trial of ovarian cancer screening found no reduction in deaths, despite detecting cancers and prompting unnecessary operations.

Full-body MRI raises comparable concerns. Incidental findings—unexpected abnormalities unrelated to symptoms—are common. Many are harmless or difficult to interpret, creating anxiety and potentially leading to additional scans, biopsies, or surgery. A reassuring scan can also miss important disease.

A recent review covering ten studies and more than 9,000 participants found confirmed cancer in approximately 1.57% of those scanned. Supporters argue that this detection rate is promising, particularly for cancers without established screening programmes. However, detecting cancer is not the same as demonstrating that screening prevents deaths. Comparisons with other screening tests also cannot establish equivalent benefits.

The central evidence gap remains: routine full-body MRI screening has not been shown to reduce mortality in people without symptoms. The article therefore supports the American College of Radiology’s position against routine use.

Its practical message is straightforward: more medical information does not automatically mean better health. Established screening programmes offer stronger evidence of benefit, while additional screening decisions require consideration of individual circumstances.

 

 

The most extensive review of the literature on full-body MRIs was recently published. It included 10 studies and just over 9,000 participants [17]. The analysis reinforced those two important points — rates of incidental findings were high, and there is no good data on cost-effectiveness [17].

But the review added another data point that provides crucial context. The researchers found that these scans detect confirmed cancer 1.57% of the time [17]. The authors called it a “modest detection rate.” But critics pushed back: breast cancer screening detects cancer in around 0.5% of screens, and lung cancer screening among high-risk smokers detects around 0.8–1.1%. By that comparison, 1.57% is comparable or better [18].

Proponents also argue that a significant advantage of whole-body MRI scans is the ability to detect a range of cancers — including pancreatic, ovarian, and kidney cancers — for which there is currently no established population-level screening approach [18].

Despite this pushback, both sides agree on one thing: more data is needed to determine whether these preventative scans are actually cost-effective and useful in normal clinical settings [18]. And this is why, even in light of this up-to-date data, the position of the American College of Radiology continues to make sense.