Radiologists speak out against whole-body MRI screening in prominent editorial

Two radiologists are urging consumers to avoid paying for elective, whole-body MRIs, contending this growing health fad may do more harm than good. 

Matthew S. Davenport, MD, MBA, and Scott B. Reeder, MD, PhD, made their plea to patients in a prominent editorial published Wednesday by JAMA. They note that for-profit MRI providers have “rapidly entered the national conversation,” with over 100,000 consumers reportedly undergoing these scans to date. (The two never mention market leader Prenuvo by name, but the California company—which charges $2,499 per scan—reported reaching this milestone in 2024.)

However, despite the care model’s popularity, Davenport and Reeder emphasized that no major medical society recommends whole-body MRI imaging in the general population. That’s because such screenings are “unproven, and the harms likely outweigh the benefits.” 

“People have the right to make informed decisions about their health,” Davenport and Reeder, with the universities of Michigan and Wisconsin, respectively, wrote May 6. “If you are considering buying this test, our advice is buyer beware. You may lose more than just your money.”

The two radiologists noted that clinical guidelines currently only recommend whole-body MRI screening for patients with specific genetic syndromes that commonly cause aggressive, potentially curable cancers. All screening tests come with the risk of potential harm, they added, but the goal is to screen those who have high enough pretest odds of important disease, with the benefits outweighing the risks. 

“If the pretest odds are too low, more people will be hurt than helped, regardless of how well-intentioned the screening may be,” they wrote, “which is why, for example, colon cancer screening is not performed in healthy 20-year-olds.”

With MRIs, benign, slow-growing and risky diseases “often look the same.” This can create uncertainty, leading to costly, potentially harmful and unnecessary follow-up tests such as biopsies, surgeries and other interventions. To improve lives with screening, the benefits of an exam “must exceed its cumulative harm.” As one example, they cited an ultrasound-based thyroid cancer screening initiative in South Korea, which resulted in a 15-fold increase in newly diagnosed diseases. However, tens of thousands of individuals developed complications from subsequent surgeries, and later analyses showed there was “no mortality benefit whatsoever.” 

Whole-body MRIs identify cancer in approximately 1 or 2 people out of every 100 in the general adult population, according to previous estimates. And finding cancer in these instances is unlikely to help, since most types will either be low-risk or already too advanced to treat. 

That’s not to mention the psychological damage that can come with whole-body testing, they added. 

“These nonspecific findings can cause emotional harm as you wait for a more specific diagnosis,” Davenport said in a statement from Michigan Medicine Wednesday. “But that specific diagnosis may not come for many years, if ever. This process can affect self-image in profound ways. You begin to view yourself as a patient with a problem, even if what was detected ultimately proves benign or very low risk.”

The University of Wisconsin also highlighted the editorial in a separate news announcement, published May 6. 

Their criticisms come after Prenuvo recently ramped up radiologist recruitment amid expansion plans and launched a subscription service to spur repeat business. The Redwood City, California-based company has raised over $120 million and earned endorsements from celebrities such as Kim Kardashian. It also has inspired others to enter this space, including radiology groups SimonMed Imaging and Rayus.