And especially because in the future, most radiology work will be done by software. It's just a matter of whether it's 10 years or 100 years from now.
Surely concern for the well-being of the patient figures in there somewhere...
Or imagine this: A liver lesion is incidentally discovered on your abdominal CT performed for unrelated reasons. Its radiographic characteristics are equivocal. Additional imaging studies fail to completely exclude the possibility of a liver malignancy. You undergo a biopsy. But the biopsy is complicated by hemorrhage. Surgery is required. You develop a post-operative nosocomial infection. etc. etc.
To the extent that risks along this chain of unfortunate events is known, yes, warnings could put some of the quantified decision making in the patient's hands. Well, except for the rampant innumeracy in the general population...
This topic (breast screening) is a good example due to the sheer scale. If you increase the work-up rate by even a smallish amount, you are statistically pretty much guaranteed to kill people who did not have the disease. How this balances about gain (i.e. save other lives) is not obvious. Figuring out the "right" way to do this is real work.
It's not the case the more screening is always better. There are plenty of screening regimes that you've never heard about because the trial data didn't support it.
Gøtzsche PC. Mammography screening is harmful and should be abandoned. J R Soc Med. 2015;108(9):341-345. doi:10.1177/0141076815602452 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4582264/
You would choose annual body CT even if outcomes-based evidence showed no benefit?
Even among those at highest risk for lung carcinoma, studies of annual screening chest CT do not uniformly show improved disease-specific survival as compared to an unscreened but otherwise matched cohort.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3762603/
What I found mind blowing when I first read these studies (particularly the second link) is that the positive-predictive value of the CT screen was only 3.8% for lung nodules that were 4mm or larger in size. Basically just means we find all kinds of lung abnormalities all the time that "could be cancer" but aren't.
Keep in mind, that the screening criteria was people over age 65 who had a 30+ pack-year smoking history (1 pack-year = smoking 1 pack of cigarettes per day in one year), and had to have smoked within the last 15 years.
I can also tell you from doing CT lung biopsies that it's not a procedure to take lightly. Lot of important structures in the chest.
I mean, plus I have extreme health anxiety, and I've had doctors say "nah you're too young, we don't need to test for that" and later it turned out I did have kidney failure at 35.
It really isn't. Your chances of negative consequence for unnecessary follow up procedures would rapidly become significant.
"I have no medical background whatsoever but I do not buy undisputed medical science."
> I'd get a CT scan every year if I could convince someone to sign off on it
20mSv of unnecessary ionizing radiation exposure a year, what could possibly go wrong? That whole-body CT scan is equivalent to getting at least EIGHTY chest x-rays, and ten times what a uranium miner receives in a year, and well within the range where an increased risk of cancer is noticeable in epidemiological data.
Case and point why this tool should not be generally available.