FYI, finding an incidentaloma and doing another scan 3 months later to see that it’s disappeared is also life saving. My mother had a lung problem, got some imaging done, they found a lump in her lung, and instead of going directly to poking it for a biopsy or surgery, they checked 4 months later, and saw that it resolved on it’s own. If it was cancer, they would have seen changes in it, and known it was something to be investigated further at the time of the second scan. Doctors need to manage expectations and refer people for therapy if they have anxiety around their health.
Oh for sure, my comment is more towards people that won’t accept the diagnosis of everything is fine and no further testing is needed. Those people tend to yell, sue, go find some other doc, try chi blocking and crystals before they will talk to a therapist about their anxiety.
My comment about incidentaloma is more when you find something that wasn’t causing any true issue. Now what. You have to get another scan. But before that, there was no indication that anything was wrong because nothing was wrong. Now you’re stuck working and monitoring something that ends up being benign and would have been that way if you never look.
Same with any tests, there’s a rate of false positive to be aware of. When your suspicion is high, it outweighs it, but when it’s low and the test comes back positive, your stuck now and are often obligated to do unecessary work to prove that it was a false positive.
FYI, finding an incidentaloma and doing another scan 3 months later to see that it’s disappeared is also life saving. My mother had a lung problem, got some imaging done, they found a lump in her lung, and instead of going directly to poking it for a biopsy or surgery, they checked 4 months later, and saw that it resolved on it’s own. If it was cancer, they would have seen changes in it, and known it was something to be investigated further at the time of the second scan. Doctors need to manage expectations and refer people for therapy if they have anxiety around their health.
Oh for sure, my comment is more towards people that won’t accept the diagnosis of everything is fine and no further testing is needed. Those people tend to yell, sue, go find some other doc, try chi blocking and crystals before they will talk to a therapist about their anxiety.
My comment about incidentaloma is more when you find something that wasn’t causing any true issue. Now what. You have to get another scan. But before that, there was no indication that anything was wrong because nothing was wrong. Now you’re stuck working and monitoring something that ends up being benign and would have been that way if you never look.
Same with any tests, there’s a rate of false positive to be aware of. When your suspicion is high, it outweighs it, but when it’s low and the test comes back positive, your stuck now and are often obligated to do unecessary work to prove that it was a false positive.