Woman Gets Elective Full-Body MRI Scan, Finds Something Disturbing

A woman made an alarming discovery after getting an elective full-body MRI scan through a company called Prenuvo.

As People reports, Sarah Blackburn ended up getting her spleen surgically removed after doctors informed her that the scan had revealed a dangerous splenic artery aneurysm.

Blackburn, who documented her experience in a series of TikTok videos, decided to have the out-of-pocket $2,499 scan done due to a family history of cancer.

Prenuvo offers the services even for customers who don't have any symptoms. The basic idea is to catch any health issues as early as possible.

And in this case it paid off; the scan showed that Blackburn's spleen had an aneurysm, a dangerous condition, especially for women who've gone through multiple pregnancies.

The recommendation to have the entire spleen removed was almost unanimous among surgeons she contacted.

"They all came to the same spot where they were like, yeah, it's gotta go," Blackburn recounted in one of her videos.

A 2020 ultrasound had already shown a lesion on her spleen, information that People reports was never relayed to her.

But whether that means everybody should opt into the costly scan remains hotly debated. The procedure has skyrocketed in popularity, with billionaire Kim Kardashian promoting the use of a Prenuvo scan in 2023.

Many clinicians argue that the scan is far from perfect and could even put undue stress on the healthcare system.

"I think the general view of the medical establishment is that, you know, these things don't have a lot of evidence and we should be very cautious before we advise people to get something like this," physician and New Yorker writer Dhruv Khullar told the CBC last year.

According to Khullar, a full-body scan could be a "recipe for having a tremendous number of false positives and potentially overdiagnosis."

In particular, "incidentalomas," or "asymptomatic abnormalities," may "generate more questions than answers."

Last month, Prenuvo started offering a new blood test, neurological scan, and body composition report for $3,999, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The company's CEO Andrew Lacy told CNBC at the time that customers were often let down by the existing healthcare system and were seeking to take matters into their own hands.

"They have come to the understanding and realization that the health system is not serving their needs as it relates to keeping them healthy," he said.

In other words, the company's existence is symptomatic of a system that has failed the general public — particularly when it comes to insurance.

While Blackburn's experience with the scan has been overwhelmingly positive, experts are still torn about whether the trend could be causing more damage than good, especially considering the company's inaccessible pricing.

"Too often, the future of medicine isn’t equally distributed," Khullar wrote in a 2024 piece about Prenuvo for the New Yorker. "The people who pay for health information may be least likely to need it; they get it to feel good."

More on MRIs: Scientist Takes High Dose of Psilocybin, Clambers Into MRI Machine to Scan His Own Brain

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