Instead of choosing between whole-body MRI and regular cancer tests like mammograms, doctors should use both together — because MRI can find cancers that other tests don’t check for.

Using whole-body MRI to screen everyone for cancer isn't a good idea right now because it often misses cancers, finds too many harmless things that cause worry, isn't done the same way everywhere, and we don't know if it actually helps people live longer or healthier lives.

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.

A full-body MRI scan can find cancer in about 1 to 2 out of every 100 people who feel fine and have no symptoms — and that’s more than what mammograms or lung CT scans find on their own, so it might be a good way to catch multiple types of cancer early.

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.

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.