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Comment by loxias | Hacker News Reader

> Virtually all deaths from solid cancers are preventable with routine scans to find tumors before they metastasize.

Fantastic. I take it from those links this would be detectable with a full body MRI? I already wanted an excuse to start getting those regularly.

> Compare the experience of getting an x-ray from a dentist to getting one from a doctor. Or getting an ultrasound from an OB to getting one from any other doctor.

Can you expand on this? It sounds like you're implying something (I might agree with), but am not sure.

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> Fantastic. I take it from those links this would be detectable with a full body MRI? I already wanted an excuse to start getting those regularly.

There is a lot of research on the topic but it doesn’t agree with the OP’s thesis. Full body scans can be purchased if you have the funds, but you are far more likely to get false positives than to actually catch a cancer this way. The ensuing medical costs and possibly even unnecessary surgeries are statistically likely to cause you more detriment than any benefit you might receive. This is counterintuitive to many, but the truth is that it’s not actually easy to spot nascent pre-symptomatic cancers from full body scans without incurring a massive number of false positives along the way. Something like 1 in 8 people will end up getting flagged for “warning signs of potential cancer” during these scans that turns out to be nothing upon further investigation. Few people continue to get the tests for this reason.

>I already wanted an excuse to start getting those regularly.

Psychotherapy can help with hypochondria.

Hahaha :) Close, but no. Regularly I mean "roughly yearly", and I'm a signals processing dork, not much of a health nut.

If you're looking for a hobby, it's 2022 and you can buy better-than-a-potato ultrasound gear on eBay for less than $1000. Also, cheap ECG amplifiers are quite available these days.

I think the difference is that ultrasound/imaging is routine annual from dentist and monthly or whatever from OB during pregnancy, but otherwise requires a specialist referral for a specific injury or complaint.

It's also the case that a pregnancy is a hugely obvious invisible but major health situation, and teeth are expected to rot frequently.

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