Full-body scans: Buying peace of mind

This new trend offers patients full-body CT screens to detect serious illnesses early. But will the result lead to waiting rooms full of patients with stacks of scan reports and worried looks?

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Sept. 3, 2001.

Washington -- The newspaper and magazine ads are enticing. "A simple 15-minute exam can save your life," they claim. "Why take a chance?"

Radiologists who conduct the exams, which are actually full-body computed tomography scans, say they can detect the earliest stages of several conditions in asymptomatic patients. The conditions range from brain tumors to kidney stones. Who wouldn't be attracted to such a marvelous procedure that can help see into a patient's medical future?

But at the same time, this increasingly available screening practice raises tricky issues that likely will play out both in the exam room and across the health care financing system.

"It's a great concept," said Sandra Fryhofer, MD, immediate past president of the American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine. "[But] I don't think we're there yet." It reminds her of a Star Trek-type approach to medical care: "Quick, painless and easy."

The latest series of CT scanners do lend a sci-fi aspect to modern medicine. The machines provide detailed, cross-sectional views of all types of tissue. Targeted CT scans are frequently used to diagnose many cancers, including lung, liver and pancreatic cancer. CT scans also are being used to detect early heart disease.

But many physicians take a harsher view of the growing popularity of full-body scans for asymptomatic patients. They say the scans subject patients to unnecessary exposure to radiation or to possibly risky follow-up diagnostic procedures for conditions that frequently turn out to be harmless. [...]