"...are increasingly finding abnormalities that may not be the cause of the problem for which they are blamed....But in many cases it is just not known whether what is seen on a scan is the cause of the pain. The problem is that all too often, no one knows what is normal."
It seems that there are only two body parts about which here is quite a bit of evidence about what is "normal" or not: the back and the knee. But it seems that even the data for the knee comes from only one study.
Interesting reading. The article quotes Dr. Michael Modic, chairman of the Neurological Institute at the Cleveland Clinic as having performed a study about the efficacy of using MRIs as a diagnosis tool. The study seems to indicate that the M.R.I. scan was not useful and actually made patients feel worse.
"If I tell you that you have a degenerated disk, basically I'm telling you you're ugly," Dr. Modic said.
That cuts deep in those of use (me) who are solidly in middle age.
Dr. Modic believes that MRIs should only be used as presurgical tools, not screening tools because the results they indicate may be normal and not the cause of the pain that initially was the reason for the scan.
What do you think?
Never have thought of this before. As a science teacher, I'd have to go with Dr. Modic's logic. Using a MRI as a screening tool might find all sorts of "abnormalities", but that might just be a genetic variation that an individual has had since birth. As a screening tool, it could lead unnecessary procedures.
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