Author here. Disclosure up front: I write for TrueScan, a full-body MRI provider, so I have an obvious bias. I tried to engage with the steel-manned version of the critic argument (Davenport's recent JAMA "buyer beware" piece and the ACR's 2023 statement) rather than the easy version.
The core claim: the "overdiagnosis" critique evaluates whole-body MRI as a population-level public health intervention, but that framing answers a different question than the one informed individuals are actually asking. It also tends to ignore the cost of underdiagnosis. Newman-Toker et al. (BMJ Quality & Safety, 2024) put serious diagnostic harm at ~795,000 Americans per year, with ~371,000 deaths.
Most interested in pushback on the baseline-imaging argument (single scan as a longitudinal reference point), which I think is the strongest case and the one least addressed by the published critiques.
Author here. Disclosure up front: I write for TrueScan, a full-body MRI provider, so I have an obvious bias. I tried to engage with the steel-manned version of the critic argument (Davenport's recent JAMA "buyer beware" piece and the ACR's 2023 statement) rather than the easy version. The core claim: the "overdiagnosis" critique evaluates whole-body MRI as a population-level public health intervention, but that framing answers a different question than the one informed individuals are actually asking. It also tends to ignore the cost of underdiagnosis. Newman-Toker et al. (BMJ Quality & Safety, 2024) put serious diagnostic harm at ~795,000 Americans per year, with ~371,000 deaths. Most interested in pushback on the baseline-imaging argument (single scan as a longitudinal reference point), which I think is the strongest case and the one least addressed by the published critiques.