Preventive full body scan anyone?

[ratface]

Don't do it

I have a pretty unique perspective. 5yrs. ago I was diagnosed with stage four Head and Neck cancer during a routine doctors office visit. This cancer is notorious for spreading to the lungs. I underwent chemo, radiation and surgery. My very first post treatment CT scan revealed 4 lung nodules and a thyroid nodule. I cannot begin to describe the terror that set in after the first CT scan. Now you have to wait for the next scan and compare the result to the first scan. (six months) No change. Now you wait for the third scan and compare to previous scans. (six months) No change. Now you wait for the fourth scan (six months) and compare and so on and so on. Turns out all of those nodules were there prior to my cancer and are unrelated. I know that now but spent way too many sleepless nights worrying about the "suspicious nodules" and countless hours on the internet doing nodule research. We all have some abnormalities and a CT scan will find every last meaningless one of them.

 

[Dakotah]

While there is always a small chance a "preventive" scan will find something significant, there is a much larger chance that it will find something harmless that will need to be worked up at great expense only to find that you have wasted your (or your insurer/government's) money.