Pros and Cons of Body Scans

In many parts of the country, healthy people are walking into commercial body scanning centers without a doctor’s referral, willing to pay handsomely for a detailed picture of their internal organs and tissues. “We haven’t seen many of these entrepreneurial centers in our region,” says radiologist John Cox, M.D., of Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network. If and when we do, is this a sensible way to satisfy your curiosity about your health?

CT (computed tomography) scanning produces a digital picture of body tissues and organs. It’s a crucial diagnostic tool for a doctor who suspects a colon or lung tumor, blocked artery, or various other conditions. But when it’s used as a screening tool for healthy people, body scanning raises concerns:

• Radiation dose— The dose varies depending on the machine and the patient’s size, Cox says, but it’s “substantially more than a chest X-ray.”
• Cost— The going rate for a body scan is around $1,000, and insurance almost certainly won’t cover it.
• Usefulness— “It takes years of studying large numbers of people to prove the benefit of a screening procedure,” Cox says. “Body scanning is too new for us to know its value.”
• Anxiety— Chances are, your body is full of little benign blips and blemishes that will never hurt you. But if they show up on a scan, you don’t know if they’re malignant—and that could lead to much unnecessary testing, expense and mental anguish.
  

The bottom line: If your doctor prescribes CT, fine. But unless money is no object and you absolutely have to know, it’s probably wisest to forego a body scan.

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