Scan Medical Insurance

Cancer full body scans?

1 in 3 people get some type of cancer. So, why doesn't everyone receive full body cancer scans? If everyone received one once a year and it was covered by insurgence, wouldn't it cut down the deaths due to cancer dramatically? Also, why are scans not covered by insurance? and why are they so expensive?

Public Comments

1. Because many of those 1 in 3 people diagnosed with cancer have simple skin cancers that are easily cured by excision and which do not show up on scans anyway. If you are talking about full body CT scans then each scan would give you a dose of radiation equal to several hundred chest x-rays and if this was done on a yearly basis the testing would soon cause many more new cases of cancer than if the tests were not performed. MRIs are very expensive and since many people would need to be sedated to have full body scans the cost would be enormous. CT scans often find many benign incidental findings - liver cysts, old granulomas, scar tissue, etc and if every finding is investigated to make sure it is not cancer the cost would be prohibitive and the biopsy surgeries would again cause more problems than you would have if these incidental findings had just been ignored.
2. 1. Scans don't show all cancers. Even PET scans can miss some cancers, and MRI and CT's do as well. 2. There is some risk involved. Guidelines for cancer survivors now recommend cutting back on routine CT's due to the radiation risk. There is not very much risk, but if you don't need the scan, you should not be exposed. A bigger risk is an allergic reaction to the iodine contrast dye. PET scans require infusion of a radioactive isotope. Again, not a big risk, but why take it if it is not necessary. 3. Why are they so expensive? Have you ever seen these machines? More work is being done on cheaper blood tests that can be given to everyone, but as yet there really is not one good way to diagnose all cancer.
3. First of all full body scans only show certain types of cancer - you can get a radiation scan - that shows generally thyroid and lymphoma, you can get a PET scan or a PET/CT scan - that shows other kinds. You can get a MRI and that will show still other kinds. HOWEVER, it is not fool proof - I currently have 6 tumors in my neck and chest - the PET/CT scan only picked up 2 in my chest. None in my neck. We saw those and biopsied them using ultrasound - they are all cancerous. We also had an MRI done that showed nothing. I had a full body scan done (radioactive) and it showed nothing again. The last 2 times I had cancer the same thing. Not all the tumors showed up. See, it's hard for anyone to justify just getting scans once a year if they don't even show everything. It really would be a waste of resources. And if the tumors are small (like the kind routinely found on mammograms when treatment is still effective and they are easy to take out) the scan will show nothing at all. It just isn't as easy as it sounds. Maybe one day we will find something that will show everything, but for now, we just don't have that tool and it is not cost effective. As a recurring cancer patient, I even have to fight for the scans and PET/s etc. That's just the nature of the beast with insurance. Too bad we don't have socialized healthcare - I know people in the UK that have never paid for any healthcare or dental care and they have great docs and treatments. In addition to what jwintern said - I had gall bladder surgery and had complications- I had CT scans at least once a day for 20 days - my endochrinologist said that that exposure probably contributed to my thyroid cancer, but what were we going to do at the time? Let me die? I had to have those scans. It is best to avoid too many radiation related scans if you can, like she says.
4. Because most of the things seen on scans in symptom free people are coincidental things having nothing to do with cancer, so you waste the public's money and then subject people to dangerous and unecessary treatment for nothing! It's been proven several times to have no benefit.