Buying into the buzz on full body MRI’s

I’ve been following the recent buzz about full body MRI’s since a number of high profile people,
most notably Kim Kardashian, went public about their experiences. The idea that you can have a
scan and get a detailed report on the status of your health, and in particular the presence of
potential cancerous tumours has clear appeal, but it’s a long way from being universally endorsed or
recommended as a health management strategy.

I can fully appreciate the pros and cons of the service, and in particular the potential for results to
cause concern and anxiety for patients if they detect either false positives, or issues that are
unimportant and asymptomatic, but whose investigation requires further testing which generates
potentially unnecessary cost and load on healthcare resources.

That said, there were a number of factors that made me form a view that for me the potential
benefits outweighed the risks. The first was that as a long term endometriosis sufferer, I experience
symptoms that are flagged as warning signs of ovarian cancer more days than not, and there was
definite appeal in getting some peace of mind around that, in addition to understanding whether
there were any other lurking potential nasties. As a healthcare professional I was also fairly
confident that I would be able to assess the findings in an informed way, and make educated
decisions around what required additional follow up rather than racing off for a barrage of
potentially unnecessary investigations.

I had a trip to LA coming up, so decided that I would book in for a scan and see what both the results
were, and what the patient experience was like. Post Kim Kardashian’s Instagram post, Prenuvo was
booked out for 6 months in advance so that wasn’t an option for the timing of my travel. Ezra had
appointments available that matched my travel availability though, so I booked in for a scan with
them.

I’d spoken to quite a lot of people about the fact that I’d booked in for the scan in the weeks before I
had it, and the response was fascinating. I was so surprised by the number of people who said they
wouldn’t do it, not for the reasons outlined above, but because they wouldn’t want to know if they
did have cancer. To the best of my knowledge there’s no form of cancer that goes away if you ignore
it, and in fact there is a definite correlation between early detection and survival.

Now to talk to the actual experience. Everything was online until the time that I arrived at the clinic,
with the forms very user friendly and easy to complete, and lots of communication around what to
expect. The one part of the communication that either was missing, or I certainly missed, was that
the scan itself would be provided by a third party partner rather than an Ezra branded clinic. Maybe
I’d been too heavily influenced by the branded posts I’d seen of beautifully branded Prenuvo clinics,
complete with custom scrubs for the procedure, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to arrive at a
generalist radiology clinic with no branding or identification as an Ezra service provider visible. After
double and triple checking I was at the right address I joined the queue of people waiting for all
manner of radiology procedures. Turned out I was in the right place, and after I donned my very
unglamorous and decidedly non custom gown with no back, I had the scan.

The technician explained everything really well, including the importance of absolute stillness during
the procedure. There was no fancy podcast to listen to or inbuilt video as seen in some of the
alternative product influencer posts, but my jet lag served me well and I dozed through the majority
of the 45 minutes that the scan took. (Apparently the 60 minute booked time includes allowance for
repeats of areas if you don’t keep still enough, but my semi-slumber must have taken care of that!)

A few days later my report arrived in my inbox. It was really comprehensive, but the information was
presented in a way that was very clear and easy to understand. I jumped straight to the pelvic section, and was thrilled to see that everything was normal, and that I can just continue to put all of  those niggling potential ovarian cancer warning signs down to endometriosis. There were a couple of relatively minor identifications flagged for potential follow up, but nothing of much significance.

For me personally I’m glad I took the opportunity to try the service. It’s given me good peace of
mind around my health, and given some impetus to take more proactive action on a couple of things
that I knew could benefit from some lifestyle change.

It’s a business model that I’ll continue to watch with interest, and an area where I’m sure the rapid
pace of AI advancement will deliver benefits in both the accuracy of the information provided while
reducing the cost of service.

To be clear I paid in full for the Ezra scan, and have no commercial relationship with either Ezra or