Scan Medical Insurance

The total body scan. Has anyone had it done and gotten perfect results that nothing is wrong?

Many people are going for the body scan just out of curiosity. I find this unbelievable. Why would you want to go for any procedure that could misdiagnose a potentially deadly disease by mistake of a radiologist or other specialist's call when you feel fine. Has anyone had a body scan done and gotten either perfect results or unexpectedly bad results?

Public Comments

1. PT/CT scans are a diagnostic tool, not a screening test. There is a high, about 20%, chance of false positive results. And you are exposing yourself to a significant about of radiation for no reason. If there are other symptoms of a problem such as cancer, then a PET or CT scan is a useful tool in helping with the diagnosis.
2. Interesting question. There are no "perfect" results. Cancers spend much of their time as microscopic disease that will not show up on any scans. By the time we can see a marble sized cancer on a scan, it has gone through more than half of it's life span. I'll be fascinated if ANY people say they have had complete CT or MRI scanning from head to toe just as a screen to "see if anything is wrong." Assuming that by "total body" you actual mean top of the head to the soles of the feet. I have never heard of any doctor ordering this. Aside from the false positives mentioned above, total body scans could easily miss many early malignancies. A cancer with one billion cells is roughly 1 cm in diameter - about a marble in size. You might see a 1cm mass somewhere, but then you would have to figure out what it is - leading to more invasive tests to get biopsy material - that's the false positive concern. Yet cancer masses containing hundreds of millions of cells would not show up. So you could have a normal scan of every body part even though there was an early cancer growing that would show up later. Hmmm. I suppose if some people were very rich and very paranoid, they could have complete scans every six months. That might eventually catch an early malignancy. If they did that for years, the cumulative radiation exposure might actually cause a malignancy. We have learned that screening x-ray studies to find early disease does not greatly change the outcome for lung cancers. Screening for breast cancer with mammograms, colon cancers with colonoscopy, and PSA testing for prostate cancers have been proven worthwhile. Total body scans would not be cost effective and would make zero sense when the cost of medical care is swamping the federal budget in the United States. A person who feels safer after having every body part scanned would have only a deluded, misinformed, or false sense of security. [So now the total body scan people will give me thumbs down.]
3. I've seen the ads in news papers also. They prey on hypochondriacs to make a buck. I can't imagine why anyone would want a full body scan if they felt fine! No legitimate MD would order one just to satisfy curiosity and insurance companies would laugh at a claim for one. Imagine: You get a scan and it turns up something terrible. You then go to a real doctor and he/she tells you the scan was wrong and you are fine. If you are a hypochondriac, you still worry and you are out the money for the scan! Total waste.
4. I doubt that many people over 40 would get perfect results. Stuff always shows up in these scans. A nodule here, a cyst there. And once they show up, NOW you have an issue that needs to be followed. AND you have something you get to worry about. I've been scanned as a follow-up to a cancer diagnosis and treatment. Things showed up on my lungs and pancreas. They are stable and very small. But they are there. And I know it. And I think about them fairly often. I'd be happier not knowing about them, since they don't appear to be anything bad. But they could turn, you know ... Anyway, I'm so opposed to these screening scans (whole body type, lung, etc.) that have shown no benefit.