Amar Rewari, Chief of Radiation Oncology at Luminis Health, shared on LinkedIn:
“Well, this is a first. I wrote my first op-ed, and it was published in Slate.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past couple of years speaking with reporters, doing television interviews, and trying to explain complicated issues in cancer and health care. But this was different.
For the first time, I had the opportunity to sit down and make an argument entirely in my own voice. And I chose a question where I don’t think the answer is nearly as simple as we sometimes make it sound.
As an oncologist, I know the evidence around whole-body MRIs and newer multi-cancer blood tests. For most healthy people, these tests remain investigational. They can find abnormalities that lead to more scans, biopsies, cost, and anxiety without clear evidence that they help people live longer.
So scientifically, the answer can seem straightforward.
Then I think about my mother.
She’s in her late 70s. Like many people her age, she sometimes has vague symptoms that don’t lead to a diagnosis. And despite knowing all the evidence, I still find myself wondering: What if one of these tests found something we otherwise would have missed?
Busy Philipps’ recent experience with a whole-body MRI puts a very public face on that dilemma.
My piece is about that tension between evidence and emotion, population-level medicine and individual decision-making, and the uncomfortable reality that knowing the data doesn’t make physicians immune to fear, uncertainty, or regret.
It’s also about a bigger question: As expensive new screening technologies become available to people who can afford them, are we creating a parallel system of cancer prevention while millions of Americans still aren’t receiving the vaccines and screenings we already know save lives?
I’m grateful to Slate and Shannon Palus for giving me the space to wrestle with the question rather than pretend there is an easy answer.
And, on a personal level, I’m pretty excited to see my first byline on an op-ed.
‘I Know the Evidence Against These Expensive Cancer Tests. I Still Want One for My Mother.’
Would love to hear how others think about this tension between more information and better information.”
Other articles featuring Amar Rewari on OncoDaily.