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No one says you have to follow up with anything invasive. I know someone who had a sinus polyp turn up on an MRI. Knowing what it was let him live with the symp
by miiiiiike 3y ago
No one says you have to follow up with anything invasive. I know someone who had a sinus polyp turn up on an MRI. Knowing what it was let him live with the symptoms it was causing without fearing that it was something much worse. I don't think he ever got it removed.
If you don't have symptoms and a scan showed an incidental something, you don't have to act. Personally, I'd rather know. And, if something does go wrong in the future you can say "I have an X in my left Y." Might give the doctor a place to start debugging.
- hackernewds 3y agobit off thread, I have a sinus polyp that seems to be under control when using nasal corticosteroids, with the massive risk of developing a dependency. at my wits end on other alternatives
- arcticbull 3y agoBasically every human is significantly different inside, and they look nothing like the medical literature. Any scan will reveal all sorts of things that may or may not be at all clinically relevant.
- miiiiiike 3y agoAnd to your original point: No one needs to do anything about those differences just because they got an MRI.
- arcticbull 3y agoAssuming you know which ones are problematic and which one's aren't. We don't. All the test provides is noise, not signal, when used in a low-incidence population. The fact is there's no evidence such testing improves outcomes - if there was we'd just be doing it as part of the standard course of care. Folks are just demanding access to noise. Just go flip some coins instead, and save the medical resources for the people who need them.
- miiiiiike 3y agoTalk to a radiologist and ask them about the stuff they’ve found incidentally in “healthy” people. The average person is very much as described in the medical literature, with some small variations. This isn’t a good use of my time. I’m done replying.