6 ms·

I get a significant medical every two years for various reasons. Some things are always worth measuring (weight, blood pressure, blood work) but conservatism is

I get a significant medical every two years for various reasons. Some things are always worth measuring (weight, blood pressure, blood work) but conservatism is the status quo with proactive scanning beyond the essentials for good reason. Without the right preparation and counselling (or, at minimum, a systematic, logical approach to risk), people can get thrown by findings and struggle to weigh up the risks. Is that new cyst on your kidney a problem? Is that small brain aneurysm (with a very low risk of rupture) going to play on your mind? Might you opt for an operation with a higher mortality rate than simply ignoring it? Even worse: when that 'thing' they found isn't really a 'thing' at all but you got treatment for it anyway. This tech is great to have available and for motivated individuals to have the option to use, but as something to benefit the mass market, I suspect it'll take a lot of time to shift the needle, and not for technological reasons. I think things like a-fib and blood pressure detection on wearables is more likely to have an impact in the medium term.

trackofalljades 2y ago
This is just photography not radiation or magnetism, so some of those examples wouldn't come up...but I imagine skin cancer and some other preventative concerns might be addressed?
- lm28469 2y ago
  > This is just photography not radiation or magnetism Ackchyually light is an _electromagnetic_ _radiation_ The question stays valid though, how many benign things would be treated, how many of these treatments would have net negative results, and at what cost for the already crumbling health system of most western nations
admissionsguy 2y ago
It seems obvious that one would do repeat measurements of the cyst and look for any changes, in particular rapid growth, rather than jump onto the operating table. Doing a procedure with higher risk than the asymptomatic condition itself probably should not be covered by insurance, but if someone wants to self-fund it, let them (same if they want to chop off their hand).
- bluGill 2y ago
  That measurement may be an xray which means that repeated measurement has a chance of causing cancer! Xray isn't the only measurement we have that carries risk to the body if we do it - just one I expect everyone is aware of.
  - admissionsguy 2y ago
    Yeah but doing an MRI is strictly better than not doing an MRI. There is no way more information is bad unless some serious irrationality comes into play.
    - r2_pilot 2y ago
      More information can lead to unnecessary procedures(by way of insistence either of patient or doctor) which have their own complications.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      > There is no way more information is bad unless some serious irrationality comes into play. I have some bad news to deliver about humans...
    - thfuran 2y ago
      Doing an MRI isn't free, so it isn't strictly better than not doing one.
    - markus92 2y ago
      Gadolinium-based contrast (which you'll need for any scan worth their salt) is not completely risk free, so not entirely true. And claustrophobia is a bit more common than people think.
      - thfuran 2y ago
        A significant majority of MRIs use no contrast agent.
cies 2y ago
If people die before reproducing because they cannot weigh risks, that should result in a population that is better at weighing risk in the long run.
- gipp 2y ago
  Cool, see you in a million years when that incredibly noisy effect converges
- disattention 2y ago
  Strangely pro-eugenics take...
  - cies 2y ago
    Not at all. Hardcore against eugenics. Just in favour of people knowing what goes on inside their body (transparency) and against the narrative "its better for you not to know".
boxed 2y ago
These are all problems with doctors overreacting and oversharing. Collecting the information on a large scale to know what you are looking at next time seems like the sane approach.
- michaelt 2y ago
  There's also a statistical problem. Let's say 1% of patients have X, and you've got a test for X which is 99% accurate. You screen 10,000 patients; 100 have X and you identify 99 of them. 9,900 don't have X, and you raise 99 false alarms. But if you expand screening to cover Y which 0.1% of patients suffer from, and your test for Y is equally accurate, you'll identify 10 patients with Y - and get 100 false alarms. So the rarer the thing you're screening for, the better your test needs to be - unless you want to be buried in false alarms. As I understand things, this is why we don't generally screen for prostate cancer in the under-50s.
  - boxed 2y ago
    That's not a statistical problem, it's a problem of doctors not knowing statistics. My point is that you could do these scannings on a broad scale and not look at the result per patient. Don't give it to their doctor to look at by default as that is the problem. Use it for basic science FIRST.
  - thfuran 2y ago
    And sometimes the test itself can have rare adverse outcomes even ignoring the issues with false positives.
  - zo1 2y ago
    I may be off base. But it sounds like the accuracy rate of those tests is off if it's based on an assumption that you'll only test people who have risk factors. I would have thought that by now, being the year 2024, we've gotten better than just guessing and statistically inferring stuff. This is where the big disconnect is, and why so many are starting to distrust the medical field. We assume doctors can diagnose stuff and not just go around making educated guesses. No wonder it's a giant government-enforced cartel that restricts competition.
Symmetry 2y ago
This sort of thing does require a certain tolerance for ambiguity if you want to look at the raw results yourself rather than having a doctor do it for you.

trackofalljades 2y ago

This is just photography not radiation or magnetism, so some of those examples wouldn't come up...but I imagine skin cancer and some other preventative concerns might be addressed?

lm28469 2y ago
> This is just photography not radiation or magnetism Ackchyually light is an _electromagnetic_ _radiation_ The question stays valid though, how many benign things would be treated, how many of these treatments would have net negative results, and at what cost for the already crumbling health system of most western nations

admissionsguy 2y ago

It seems obvious that one would do repeat measurements of the cyst and look for any changes, in particular rapid growth, rather than jump onto the operating table. Doing a procedure with higher risk than the asymptomatic condition itself probably should not be covered by insurance, but if someone wants to self-fund it, let them (same if they want to chop off their hand).

bluGill 2y ago
That measurement may be an xray which means that repeated measurement has a chance of causing cancer! Xray isn't the only measurement we have that carries risk to the body if we do it - just one I expect everyone is aware of.
- admissionsguy 2y ago
  Yeah but doing an MRI is strictly better than not doing an MRI. There is no way more information is bad unless some serious irrationality comes into play.
  - r2_pilot 2y ago
    More information can lead to unnecessary procedures(by way of insistence either of patient or doctor) which have their own complications.
  - itishappy 2y ago
    > There is no way more information is bad unless some serious irrationality comes into play. I have some bad news to deliver about humans...
  - thfuran 2y ago
    Doing an MRI isn't free, so it isn't strictly better than not doing one.
  - markus92 2y ago
    Gadolinium-based contrast (which you'll need for any scan worth their salt) is not completely risk free, so not entirely true. And claustrophobia is a bit more common than people think.
    - thfuran 2y ago
      A significant majority of MRIs use no contrast agent.

cies 2y ago

If people die before reproducing because they cannot weigh risks, that should result in a population that is better at weighing risk in the long run.

gipp 2y ago
Cool, see you in a million years when that incredibly noisy effect converges
disattention 2y ago
Strangely pro-eugenics take...
- cies 2y ago
  Not at all. Hardcore against eugenics. Just in favour of people knowing what goes on inside their body (transparency) and against the narrative "its better for you not to know".

boxed 2y ago

These are all problems with doctors overreacting and oversharing. Collecting the information on a large scale to know what you are looking at next time seems like the sane approach.

michaelt 2y ago
There's also a statistical problem. Let's say 1% of patients have X, and you've got a test for X which is 99% accurate. You screen 10,000 patients; 100 have X and you identify 99 of them. 9,900 don't have X, and you raise 99 false alarms. But if you expand screening to cover Y which 0.1% of patients suffer from, and your test for Y is equally accurate, you'll identify 10 patients with Y - and get 100 false alarms. So the rarer the thing you're screening for, the better your test needs to be - unless you want to be buried in false alarms. As I understand things, this is why we don't generally screen for prostate cancer in the under-50s.
- boxed 2y ago
  That's not a statistical problem, it's a problem of doctors not knowing statistics. My point is that you could do these scannings on a broad scale and not look at the result per patient. Don't give it to their doctor to look at by default as that is the problem. Use it for basic science FIRST.
- thfuran 2y ago
  And sometimes the test itself can have rare adverse outcomes even ignoring the issues with false positives.
- zo1 2y ago
  I may be off base. But it sounds like the accuracy rate of those tests is off if it's based on an assumption that you'll only test people who have risk factors. I would have thought that by now, being the year 2024, we've gotten better than just guessing and statistically inferring stuff. This is where the big disconnect is, and why so many are starting to distrust the medical field. We assume doctors can diagnose stuff and not just go around making educated guesses. No wonder it's a giant government-enforced cartel that restricts competition.

Symmetry 2y ago

This sort of thing does require a certain tolerance for ambiguity if you want to look at the raw results yourself rather than having a doctor do it for you.