‘Total body scan’: strijd tussen gevoel en verstand

In the late nineties of the last century, commercial screening centres started using CT and MRI technology to screen healthy people for the presence of asymptomatic tumours and cardiovascular diseases. Although this concept of screening is very appealing, research so far leads to doubts about its usefulness. The costs of assessing the significance of false positive findings in particular can be considerable and these are generally paid for by the general health insurance. More recently, these centres have been offering a broad screening package including prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and pulmonary and cardiac functioning tests. Here too, data on usefulness are lacking and, instead of offering useable medical advice, such screening activities could harm the health of the screened people.

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: none declared.