5 ms·

My wife is a physician and this is a contentious issue. Virtually any full scan will turn up things that seem like a cause for concern when you're fine. The ris

My wife is a physician and this is a contentious issue. Virtually any full scan will turn up things that seem like a cause for concern when you're fine. The risk of false positives is fairly high when testing is nonspecific/un-targeted. This results in real stress, difficult decisions, and often times worse care.

m463 4y ago
I was wondering when I would see this answer, since that's what they would always say on House. I still think there are probably big obvious things that need to be caught early.
- jghn 4y ago
  It's tricky. At a population scale it looks more and more like early detection for many things causes more harm than good. On the other hand, if you're the person who could have had a better outcome with early detection it's hard to argue that point.
- bsder 4y ago
  If you are hunting for a gross change, sure, go get scanned. For example, a calcium scan is generally a good thing--learning that your arteries are 50%+ blocked will save your life. However, the kind of detail you require to catch something small, early requires an MRI--generally with a contrast dye. Unfortunately, Gadolinium, for example, seems to bioaccumulate. So, just like X-Rays, how many MRI's do you need to get over your life before the MRI is more problematic than the thing you are looking for? And this is before you start getting into what emotional toll that "spotting something" will have on the patient. A friend of mine had "something" on her mammogram and the anxiety combined with high-blood pressure spike that induced until the biopsy came back negative could very well have given her a stroke. The worst part is that people want to do all this "medical" stuff when there are much better low-hanging fruits: eat better, exercise, sleep, get vaccinated (viruses cause more damage than you think), etc.
deleted 4y ago
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m463 4y ago

I was wondering when I would see this answer, since that's what they would always say on House. I still think there are probably big obvious things that need to be caught early.

jghn 4y ago
It's tricky. At a population scale it looks more and more like early detection for many things causes more harm than good. On the other hand, if you're the person who could have had a better outcome with early detection it's hard to argue that point.
bsder 4y ago
If you are hunting for a gross change, sure, go get scanned. For example, a calcium scan is generally a good thing--learning that your arteries are 50%+ blocked will save your life. However, the kind of detail you require to catch something small, early requires an MRI--generally with a contrast dye. Unfortunately, Gadolinium, for example, seems to bioaccumulate. So, just like X-Rays, how many MRI's do you need to get over your life before the MRI is more problematic than the thing you are looking for? And this is before you start getting into what emotional toll that "spotting something" will have on the patient. A friend of mine had "something" on her mammogram and the anxiety combined with high-blood pressure spike that induced until the biopsy came back negative could very well have given her a stroke. The worst part is that people want to do all this "medical" stuff when there are much better low-hanging fruits: eat better, exercise, sleep, get vaccinated (viruses cause more damage than you think), etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]