Let's say you have a mass at the head of the pancreas that is incidentally detected on a scan. Let's further stipulate that the mass does not have anything that clearly indicates that it's pancreatic cancer - but also does not have signs of being a benign cyst. What do you do about it?

Well, you can do nothing, and just follow it up with repeat scans. Or you can go to surgery. Both cost money and time. But if you have pancreatic cancer, aggressive resection is essentially the only chance of a cure. So both patients and doctors are highly incentivized to go straight to surgery. If it turns out, once the mass has been resected, that it's actually a completely benign tumor, was the procedure really "unnecessary"? Because taking a piece of it and looking at it under a microscope is the only way you'll ever know for sure.

Would you like to try live your life normally with that sword of Damocles hanging over your head? I wouldn't.

Most doctors will freely admit that they sometimes do unnecessary procedures out of an abundance of caution.

> It's either a problem or it isn't

That's vacuously true. The problem is that we humans can't always discern the truth of the situation. Not even doctors.

They perform a lot of unnecessary procedures. It's well known and not a conspiracy. Sometimes they do it to make money. Other times it's so they don't get sued. Scan the comments here and you'll see sentiments of people upset that their doctor didn't do a procedure and blaming them for adverse health problems.

>It's either a problem or it isn't

Try looking at a full body scan and make that call.