Do radiologists only look for the problem listed on the prescription? I just had an MRI done of my thoracic spine because of “back pain”. The scan shows surrounding structures and organs. If there’s something obviously wrong elsewhere, will the radiologist notice it, even if it’s not related to my spine?
I can’t find the answer to this question on the Internet, maybe I’m not using the correct search terms. I’m hoping someone with more experience can chime in.
Yes, they usually look at the whole picture and comment on other things. When I was doing a radiology rotation, at a teaching conference they put up a chest x-ray and asked for an interpretation. The key point was that there was a bone cancer in the upper arm-nothing was wrong in the chest.
Yes, they are expected to look at everything in the pictures they’ve taken.
That being said, MR scan of the spine often has the pictures (field of view) narrowly restricted so that they do not get images of anything too far away from the spine though - so while your whole torso went through the machine, the pictures that were created may only cover the back and middle parts of the adjacent lungs, the back part of the liver etc.
What pudytat72 said.
But also, there are numerous imaging sequences (types) within MRI.
It’s not common practice to do all of them, which would take hours. Instead, they typically do a general-purpose sequence plus any specialised sequences required for your condition.
So it’s possible they could miss something which would only show on a particular sequence – best to let your doctor know if you suspect anything.