Put aside your $3,500 Cartier watch and $12,000 Birkin bag. The latest status symbol may be the full-body MRI scan, promoted by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and designer Zac Posen.
Scans aren't cheap and aren't covered by insurance for healthy people. The Prenuvo full-body scan used by Kardashian and Posen costs $2,499. Another company, Ezra, costs him $1,950 for a full-body scan and $2,350 for the “Plus” package.
To Gary J. Young, a professor at Northeastern University, the use of full-body MRI in healthy wealthy and famous people looks like another example of runaway screening that he documented in a 2021 study.
“For an average-risk person, the likelihood of detecting anything of serious concern is very low. Spending scarce resources on health care is not a good way for us to spend them,” Northeastern Health Policy and Healthcare Research said. said Young, director of the center and professor of strategic management and health systems. “We have to think about it at a population level and at an individual level.”
He says insurance companies and medical professionals are on the same page when it comes to full-body MRI scans.
“For people at average risk, the cost per life saved is so high that it has never been seriously considered by public health advocates and policy makers,” he says. “This is not a situation where public health advocates and health system executives are at odds. Here, they are aligned.”
Doctors are already overprescribing MRIs
Young's research shows that doctors are often pressured to prescribe unnecessary MRI procedures to funnel money to hospitals, which drives up medical costs.
“We know that MRI shouldn't be used on people who initially complain of low back pain, shoulder pain or knee pain, because it doesn't really give you valuable information,” Young says.
“People with back pain first need to undergo a period of exercise and physical therapy. We use MRI too much and we use diagnostic imaging too much,” he says. “Certainly, it doesn't mean anything if it's a full body scan.”
If you are willing to pay out of pocket
But what about individuals who have the means to pay out of pocket or who are willing to follow payment plans easily found on video company websites?
Prenuvo says its whole-body MRI screens for solid tumors, spinal cord abnormalities and degeneration, fatty liver disease, multiple sclerosis, and other conditions patients want to be alerted to.
“While MRI does not expose people to radiation, people need to be aware that they will likely need follow-up tests,” Young says.
“An MRI raises certain red flags. You may need other types of tests, such as a CT scan that exposes you to radiation. and other invasive procedures that can actually put you at very serious risk, not to mention concerns.”
For averagely healthy people, “the risks and concerns far outweigh the good,” Young said. “In some cases, it could save someone's life.”
Maria Menounos incident
One of the most high-profile reports of MRI scans saving lives came this spring when TV presenter Maria Menounos said she was successfully treated for stage 2 pancreatic cancer after a prenuvo test found a mass in her pancreas. It was announced.
According to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Menounos has a rare form of pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, which is less aggressive than the common ductal adenocarcinoma, but still more deadly, with a five-year survival rate. The rate was 53%.
Menounos, who was pregnant at the time of her diagnosis and has since given birth, did not describe herself as one of the “worriers” in the People magazine article.
She had been suffering from excruciating pain that could not be explained by other forms of testing, had recently been treated for a benign brain tumor, and had even recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
But for averagely healthy people, can a full-body MRI report provide a false sense of security?
When American fashion designer Posen posted a photo of himself sitting on an MRI bed after undergoing a prenuvo test a few weeks ago, his Instagram caption read: experience. “
Medical experts say people who get good results on a full-body MRI may be less likely to listen to their body's signals, which can be “very important indicators of health problems.” expressing concern.
Just because you get a full body scan doesn't mean something won't show up in the next few years, he says, and there are no guidelines for how often you should get scans.
“But again, the most important consideration is that if you do a full-body scan on someone at average risk, it's very unlikely that any problem will be detected,” he said. Masu.
Young says the development of genetic markers for people at risk for certain diseases could make MRI even more valuable in the future.
“But we need to carefully define these population subgroups,” he says.
“Body scan MRI has been talked about for years. This is actually not that new,” he says. “Sometimes it comes up in people's consciousness when it's reported in the media.”
Cynthia McCormick Hibbert is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Email c.hibbert@northeastern.edu or connect with us on Twitter. @HibbertCynthia.
