A team of experts from different fields can help decide which unexpected health findings from a full-body MRI scan should be told to the person being scanned—and they got it right about 8 out of 10 times.

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Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

36

Community contributions welcome

36

Potentially relevant incidental findings on research whole-body MRI in the general adult population: frequencies and management

Cross-Sectional Study

Human

2013 Mar

The study used a team of different experts to decide which strange findings on body scans should be told to people, and they found that 79.1% of the important ones were correctly identified and shared — just like the claim says.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Potentially relevant incidental findings on research whole-body MRI in the general adult population: frequencies and management

Score: 36

DOI: 10.1007/s00330-012-2636-6

Similar Assertions

In a study where people got full-body MRI scans for research, about 1 in 3 were told they had some unexpected health finding that might need attention.

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82%

When people get full-body scans or lab tests and are told about unexpected results—even if those results might not mean anything—they end up getting more biopsies, especially when the scan findings are shared. This might lead to too many medical tests that aren’t really needed.

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75%

When doctors tell patients about unexpected findings on a full-body MRI scan, it leads to over three times more biopsies that find cancer—but even then, very few actual cancers are found, so it might not be worth the hassle and cost.

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72%

When doctors scan someone’s whole body for research, they sometimes find unexpected things — and more than half the time, they can’t tell if those things are harmless or dangerous without doing more tests.

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72%