How often do full-body MRIs find cancer?

Re:How often do full-body MRIs find cancer? by jb1991 on Sunday February 15, 2026 @05:21AM (#47022612)

Additional diagnostics can also be very expensive. Articles like this don’t seem to understand the overall costs to a health system with decisions like these. And that cost eventually does go down into the pockets of patients one way or another.

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Re:How often do full-body MRIs find cancer? by blackcatsec on Sunday February 15, 2026 @05:46AM (#47022730)

I think the point of the conversation is that if we take the predatory capitalism out of the way, using MRIs could potentially be a net benefit overall for everyone.

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Re:How often do full-body MRIs find cancer? by randallsquared on Sunday February 15, 2026 @09:34AM (#47024001)

OECD data (most recent available, around 2020–2022): MRI units per 100K population: United States ~3.6, Canada ~1.0, United Kingdom ~0.7

I would argue that getting "predatory capitalism" out of the way has sharply curtailed MRI availability where that's been tried. Maybe we should loosen the leash on capitalism a bit to get better care...

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Re:How often do full-body MRIs find cancer? by n8henrie on Sunday February 15, 2026 @09:40AM (#47024051)

I'd argue that malpractice risk has at least as much negative influence on a physicians judgment.

It's perceived as much less (medico-legally) risky to "do something" (or more often "refer the patient to someone else to do something") than not do something.

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