MRIs: An Expensive Mistake for Breast Cancer

Never underestimate the power of the medical establishment to squeeze every last dollar from their most vulnerable patients.

One of the biggest cash cows is breast cancer… and a new study shows just how efficiently they use this disease to redirect cash from patients and their insurance companies to doctors and labs.

That’s because MRI exams add a new layer of expenses for breast cancer patients… but not much else, according to the study out of Britain.

The researchers followed 1,623 women already treated for breast cancer. All of them went through the usual tests — generally a doctor’s visit, an x-ray or ultrasound, and a lab test — to determine if they’d need another operation.

But roughly half of them were also given an MRI exam.

Within six months, 19 percent of the women who got the MRIs were told they’d need another operation. Within those same six months, 19 percent of the women who DIDN’T get the MRIs were also told they’d need a second surgery.

A year later, there was also no difference in the quality of life between these two groups, according to the study published in The Lancet.

In other words, the MRI didn’t make a single bit of difference on any level… except run up costs. Here in the United States, a breast MRI can cost up to $1,500.

There’s really only one word for this: exploitation.

That’s because this study is hardly the first of its kind… it’s not even the most damning. Other studies have also found that MRIs add little to the process beyond extra costs. They can even lead to entirely unnecessary surgeries since they can pick up minute tumors and lesions that were best left alone.

A study published last year found that women who get MRIs don’t live longer… and don’t have a lower rate of recurrence.

Add it all up and here’s what we have: A very expensive test that doesn’t increase lifespan or quality of life, and doesn’t help doctors determine who’ll need additional surgeries.

Of course, whether it’s an MRI for a woman who’s already fought off a breast cancer diagnosis or a mammogram for a woman who hasn’t, most of these screenings are unnecessary to begin with. The long-term data is in, and the numbers don’t lie: All those extra screenings pushed by the mainstream lead to more surgeries — but not fewer deaths.

They just don’t work — not for the patient, anyway. They work out pretty well for all the doctors, surgeons and labs that profit off them.