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November 24, 2003

Roy D. Bear Body Scans

By Todd Seavey

 

A recent ad in the Wall Street Journal promoted $500 body scans, $500 virtual colonoscopies, and $200 calcium heart-scoring, all for healthy people who just want a check-up (wait 'til they find out that the special "pre-holiday" prices are about the same as as the post-holiday prices). An article in the Journal described the booming market in MRI head scans, of drastically varying quality, that one can get for about $1,000-$2000 even if you're not showing any symptoms of illness (Americans are spending billions on these). Such scans are not too likely to turn up tumors and other problems at a medically-useful, crucial juncture, but they often produce false positives — signs of possible illness that will require further expensive tests or sometimes expensive but unnecessary surgery. To help you make an informed decision about whether to go in for a scan, we subjected Roy D. Bear to a full BearScanTM and offer the results for your perusal, along with Roy's post-scan thoughts on whether to seek further tests or treatment:

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