Prenuvo, a full-body MRI imaging company, has completed its largest study to date assessing the accuracy of its scans in detecting cancer.

Companies like Prenuvo say that annual full-body scans can help detect cancers and abnormalities in the body, often before symptoms appear. Skeptics, however, say there’s not enough evidence that the benefits outweigh the financial costs and mental distress of follow-up testing that many people go through.

Prenuvo May Detect Cancers Not Caught by Routine Screening

In a new study of 1,000 people who paid for a Prenuvo scan, radiologists flagged abnormalities in 41 participants that were potentially cancerous and recommended them for biopsy. Over the following year, participants reported that about half of those biopsies came back positive for cancer.

The overall cancer detection rate was 2.2%. The company presented its preliminary findings at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in April.

It’s difficult to compare Prenuvo’s detection number directly with other screening approaches. Currently, screening is recommended for five cancer types, and the detection rates vary by test and screening stage. A blood test in development to detect 50 cancer types currently has a detection rate of 0.5%, according to the latest clinical trial.

“This is worth further evaluation as a cancer screening approach. We’re not off the mark of the benchmarks that are used to evaluate cancer screening approaches,” Yosef Chodakiewitz, MD, medical director of primary care radiology at Prenuvo, told Verywell.

Chodakiewitz noted that two-thirds of the cancers detected by Prenuvo aren’t currently covered by recommended routine screenings. Those include a Hodgkin lymphoma, three kidney cancers, and two bladder cancers.

Finding a Cancer May Not Necessarily Improve Mortality

Michael Rosenthal, MD, PhD, a diagnostic radiology physician-scientist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said the preliminary data indicate that Prenuvo is identifying lesions correctly, but it’s unclear if the cancers detected are clinically significant.

Many people develop cancers that don’t end up becoming harmful. For certain non-aggressive cancers, health providers may choose to treat them right away or follow a “watch-and-see” approach.

“When we hear that we have cancer, that is a terrifying, life-changing moment,” Rosenthal told Verywell. “This idea that there may be a lot of unimportant cancers is relatively new, and something that we’re just beginning to take in as a society.”

The Prenuvo report shows how many cancers were detected, but not how aggressive they were. Rosenthal said he looks forward to more information from the company about the characteristics of those cancers. It will be important, he said, to know that the scans are catching cancers that require immediate attention.

For people who get an abnormal reading on their Prenuvo report, follow-up testing can come with downsides. Biopsies and imaging can be expensive for the patient and the health system. And there are health risks associated with the use of anesthesia, bleeding from invasive procedures, and other complications. 

Amir Borhani, MD, an associate professor of radiology and surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that his clinical team gets “a lot” of referrals for prostate exams from men whose Prenuvo scans detected prostate abnormalities.

“There’s always a chance of finding something important. But in my mind, the odds haven’t changed. If I randomly pick someone who is walking Michigan Avenue and put him in an MRI, versus somebody who came through Pernuvo, the odds of them having cancer are pretty much the same,” Bohrani told Verywell.

Prenuvo Is Not a Replacement for Cancer Screenings

Prenuvo acknowledges that MRI imaging cannot detect every early cancer with total accuracy. In the study, there were two patients who had developed breast cancer that had not been detected by the scan.

Chodakiewitz said it’s not surprising that those cases were missed, since Prenuvo doesn’t use a dedicated breast MRI technique, and because breast cancer is quite common. People eligible for a mammogram should still get one, he said, because mammography is more likely to catch early-stage breast cancers.

“Prenuvo is not an alternative to the recommended cancer screenings. We are something to be done in addition to that,” said Daniel Durand, MD, MBA, chief medical officer and president of the Prenuvo Medical Group.

Durand said Prenuvo currently endorses organ-by-organ screening and reminds patients to keep up with routine screenings. For instance, although Durand gets an annual Prenuvo scan, he also schedules a yearly skin cancer check because MRIs can’t pick up skin abnormalities.

“This is not a ‘get out of colonoscopy’ card. This is not the way to do that, because this is not optimized for colon cancer screening in particular,” Durand said.

A Bigger Study Is Underway

Much of the skepticism around Prenuvo’s work centers on the lack of evidence that full-body imaging is cost-effective and performs better than current preventive health approaches.

To fill in the remaining research gaps, the company has begun a much bigger study called Hercules. It will include about 10,000 patients who receive Prenuvo scans over 10 years.

The researchers will follow study participants for 12 to 18 months after their scan to see whether abnormalities are confirmed as cancer. They will also have access to pathology reports for each patient, offering more data about their health outcomes than the latest study.

The basic full-body Prenuvo scan costs $2,500. For the Hercules study, Prenuvo will subsidize the cost for 10% to 50% of participants.

“It would be amazing if whole body MRI turns out to be clinically beneficial and can be a useful screening test that will save lives. What we’re insisting on is that there be robust data. We can all respect the idea that Prenuvo is actually trying to do the clinical trials that are necessary to prove this to be effective, and we look forward to seeing more data,” Rosenthal said.

Full-Body MRI Imaging May Become More Popular in Coming Years

Full-body MRI imaging is already in the medical mainstream for certain groups that have a high genetic risk for cancer. For example, Li-Fraumeni syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that makes it nearly certain that someone will develop cancer. Cancer screening guidelines recommend that people with Li-Fraumeni get a full-body MRI scan yearly.

Rosenthal said that full-body MRI imaging can be “amazing” for detecting cancer early in these patients. In such cases, it’s considered cost-effective because of the high likelihood of finding cancer. For the general population, which has a lower chance of having a clinically significant cancer, the cost and potential complications from follow-up testing could outweigh the benefits.

Durand predicts that in the next decade, medical practice may move towards offering full-body imaging to more groups that are at high risk for cancer, like those with BRCA gene mutations or Lynch syndrome.

Over time, he said, insurance may begin to cover preventive scans for people with environmental or occupational exposure to carcinogens, like burn pit survivors in the military or firefighters.

“Right now, these people don’t have much to do other than be anxious,” Durand said.

Durand said that Prenuvo aims to eventually offer a “new kind of annual checkup” using a combination of full-body MRI imaging and other tests. He predicts that as the industry evolves, full-body imaging will become cheaper, quicker, and more accessible.

“What won’t change is that we will do this compassionately and non-invasively, get as much information on behalf of the person as possible, and then using both AI and physicians, bring that back to the patient so that they know how to live their next you know, most healthy year,” Durand said.