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.

When doctors scan the whole body with an MRI in people who feel fine and have no reason to think they have cancer, they find cancer in about 1.57 out of every 100 people.

If you get a full-body MRI scan and have no symptoms or known cancer risks, about 1 in 60 people might be found to have cancer they didn’t know about — so it’s kind of helpful, but not super reliable, for finding hidden cancers in healthy people.

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.

Using whole-body MRI to scan healthy people without symptoms for hidden cancers isn't very useful because it rarely finds cancer, finds lots of harmless bumps that cause worry, isn't done the same way everywhere, and we don't know if it actually helps people live longer.

Scanning your whole body with an MRI might help find hidden cancers in people who feel fine, but doctors don’t recommend it yet because we don’t have enough proof it works well enough for everyone.