A special type of full-body MRI scan found cancer in 2.2% of healthy or slightly symptomatic adults between 35 and 79, and even more often in people over 65 — suggesting it might catch cancers that regular screenings usually miss.

When doctors use full-body MRI scans on people who feel fine, about two out of three cancers they find are in body parts that don’t usually get checked during routine screenings—so this scan might catch cancers other tests miss.

When doctors didn’t have a regular test to check for cancer, a special full-body MRI scan found cancer in nearly 7 out of 10 people—so it might help catch cancers that other tests miss.

When doctors use whole-body MRI scans on people who feel fine and aren’t sick, they find cancer in only about 1.57 out of every 100 people — so it’s not very good at catching cancer early in healthy folks.

There's no universal rulebook for using full-body MRI scans to check healthy people for cancer, so different hospitals do it differently—making it hard to trust the results or use them widely in doctors' offices.

Using a full-body MRI scan might help find cancers in body parts where doctors don’t normally screen people, like without a regular test.