Every year in the US most americans get an annual physical from our doctor if we have insurance. It usually consists of getting some bloodwork done, vitals basic questions etc. Then going over those results and any concerns you may have and nothing else.
I always hear those horror stories of people just all of a sudden being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and theres nothing that can be done. Maybe im missing something.
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Well they do recommend breast and colorectal cancer screenings after a certain age, due to their relatively high incidence rates and high likelihood of being identified by simple-ish scans.
The problem with a generalized “all cancer” scan is that every cancer is unique, and how you test for them and locate the tumors varies.
Putting someone through a full body MRI every year would probably be counterproductive – you’d do more damage discovering and operating on benign cysts, very slow growing tumors, and other harmless medical oddities than you’d save by discovering actual cancers of concern. The “false alarm” rate would be pretty high.
A lot of people walk around their entire lives with undetected cysts or tumors somewhere that never cause a problem. Doctors are hesitant to screen them all down and perform unnecessary treatments.
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