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Are MRIs Overused?
It’s a question posed in a The New York Times article last week that explored MRIs in sports medicine.
Are MRIs overused? It’s a question posed in a The New York Times article last week that explored MRIs in sports medicine.
“If you want an excuse to operate on a pitcher’s throwing shoulder, just get an MRI,” James Andrews, MD, a sports medicine orthopedist in Gulf Breeze, Fla., told the Times. He suspected that MRIs were overused, so he scanned 31 healthy athletes and found 90 percent had abnormal cartilage and 87 percent had abnormal rotator cuff tendons. Andrews and his sports medicine colleagues say that indeed the scan is overused and often not the oppropriate scan in sports injuries.
MRIs are sensitive but not very specific, as one doctor explained, so they can lead to misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatments in sports medicine. Yet, sports medicine patients often demand an MRI and physicians are reluctant not to order one, according to the Times.
Of course, MRIs can be extremely helpful in sports medicine, but must be considered alongside history and an exam to avoid overuse, according to one source.
What do you think? Is there a fine line between appropriate use and overuse? Are there other areas where MRIs are often ordered but might not be the right scan?
Emerging Perspectives on PSMA PET Radiotracers: An Interview with Kenneth J. Pienta, MD
April 24th 2024In a recent interview, Kenneth J. Pienta, M.D., discussed the impact of piflufolastat F18, current directions in research with other PSMA-targeted radiotracers and future possibilities for the role of PSMA PET in the imaging paradigm for prostate cancer.
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April 23rd 2024In comparison to energy-integrating detector CT for the workup of suspected acute pulmonary embolism, the use of photon-counting detector CT reduced radiation dosing by 48 percent, according to newly published research.
