This machine can scan you from stem to stern and render a 3-d image with amazing clarity. From what little I have seen about MRIs, I actually think the millenniumscan is more detailed, and seems to be able to add realistic color to make certain organs stand out. The virtual colonoscopy image is just amazing.
From the “about/benefits” page:
According to the site, the scan can detect emphysema, heart disease, vascular disease, prostate disease, ovarian disease, endocrine disease, kidney & gall stones, benign tumors (but not cancerous ones??), aneurysms and brain disease.
(Just MHO, but “brain disease” sounds like something that Dr. Nick Riviera would say, like “skin failure”.)
More neato-torpedo things the scan can do:
• Identify microscopic amounts of plaque and other buildup in the arteries.
• Show the earliest stages of smoke damage, emphysema or signs of lung cancer.
• Discover osteoporosis and other back problems.
• Map your colon to show signs of colorectal cancer.
• Map internal organs to detect small tumors, stones, and cysts.
• Detect aneurysms in the abdomen, brain and chest cavities.
• Detect thyroid and parathyroid disease.
• Detect uterine, prostate and ovarian disease.
• Provide invaluable information to woman in early breast cancer detection, augmenting the mammogram.
The Q&A comes right out and says that insurance does not cover this $850 proceedure. And that price doesn’t include the virtual colonoscopy. Gee whiz, that’s like forking over a wad of money to get into Disneyland and then finding out that Space Mountain costs extra.
(More of MHO, but the odd-ball capitalization used in the web site bothers me. They capitalize words like “Body”, “Prevention” and “Database”, even though the words are not being used in a proper noun context. And isn’t “gall stones” supposed to be one word? Something disconcerting about a medical web site that didn’t get looked at by a proofreader.)
Anywho, this seems like a great preventive proceedure to have done at least every 5 years or so. Wouldn’t the benefits of early detection outweigh the cost of the exam? And what about the people who die from brain aneurysms or other things that can’t be detected during regular annual checkups. If 50% of heart attacks could be forseen, would that not be amazingly awsome?
Do you think insurance should cover occasional expensive proceedures like this, at least on some kind of sliding age scale?