Nevada health consumers examining body scanning

Stacy J. Willis

Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2002 | 11:12 a.m.

Minutes after Toni Alesia slid out of a $2.5 million body-scanning machine she was satisfied that she didn't have any tumors.

There was no reason to suspect that she did in the first place -- she felt fine and says she's led a relatively healthy life. But Alesia, like a growing number of adults across the nation, wants to outwit stealthy cancers that often don't present symptoms until they are in dangerous stages of development.

So when she spotted a newspaper ad for a $995 three-dimensional computer tomography scan at BodyScan Imaging Center in Henderson, she made an appointment.

After having her torso scanned, Alesia was ushered into a viewing room to see digitally enhanced images of her major organs displayed in black-and-white on a video monitor. With the click of a mouse, a radiology technician took her on a tour of her innards from diaphragm to bladder. The scan will be sent to UCLA for a physician's review, and for an additional fee BodyScan will download the images onto a CD for Alesia to view on her home computer.

If the scan had showed something of concern -- a cyst or tumor or gallstone -- it would be up to Alesia to pursue care with her physician.

"I'm willing to pay now to take preventive measures, rather than wait until it's too late," Alesia, 50, said. "I think it's great."

So do entrepreneurs from coast to coast, who are opening storefront scanning centers in strip malls and placing "two-for-one" newspaper ads aimed at luring conscientious, and cash-possessing, couples. BodyScan opened in November next to a health club in hopes of attracting walk-ins -- no physician referral is needed. Similar screening is also offered in the Las Vegas area by Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging, which has been offering full-body CT scans for nearly one year.

Computer tomographic imaging has been around for more than 20 years, but the technology for faster scans, which allow or full-body imaging, developed more recently.

A Los Angeles radiologist started a full-body scan center, HealthView, in 1998 -- and by last year, similar businesses had popped up in Tampa, Fla., Baltimore, and Scottsdale, Ariz., among other cities. It is still uncertain how the Las Vegas market, which is thought of as more interested in smoking and drinking than in preventive health, will respond.

"Las Vegans aren't real good on spending their own money on their health," Lori Bieber, radiology technician at Steinberg, said. "In Southern California, more people are into doing this."

But the trend toward consumer-driven screening doesn't provide peace of mind for everyone -- some physicians are concerned that the businesses are diversions from proven health care routines.

"I think it's perfectly worthless," Dr. John Ellerton, a Las Vegas oncologist and American Cancer Institute researcher said. "I sympathize with the public trying to find something, trying to take steps. But there are a lot of questions about this."

Ellerton said that for most people, the tests will lead to further, expensive and ultimately unneccessary tests. Or, he said, they will cause unnecessary worry.

"Suppose you find a cancer that you can't do anything about and yet you feel good -- now you have this to worry about. Or what if they do find a cyst on your liver of kidney? Now you're going to worry about it. But kidney and liver cysts are ubiquitous. Lots of people have them and they are of no consequence," Ellerton said.

Another criticism of the scans, which are not typically covered by insurance, is that they subject consumers to higher doses of harmful radiation than smaller, single-area CT scans.

A set of chest X-rays exposes a patient to about 20 to 30 millirems of radiation; a body-scan exposes him to about 320 millirems, according to Imatron Inc., which makes the electron beam tomography machine used at BodyScan.

Jim Bietendorf, manager of BodyScan, says the scan is not meant to replace doctors' care but instead to serve as an additional health care tool -- tipping off customers to their potential health problems and giving them some control of their care.

"It serves as a great baseline," he said. "We recommend that people get tested about every three years."

By making the images available for people without requiring the red tape of physician approval, scanning businesses are empowering consumers, Bietendorf said.

But medical research on the virtues of body scanning is scarce. Still, many predict that the technology will eventually be incorporated into the medical establishment, and at that time, will move from storefronts to medical centers and get approval not only of more physicians, but of insurance companies.

Already, the faster CT scans are being used for heart scans and "virtual colonoscopies," which in some cases are partially covered by insurance companies, said Eric Piotrowski, operations officer for Health South.

At HealthSouth, doctor-referred patients get their colons scanned for abnormalities in a less invasive procedure than the traditional colonoscopy. Like the full-body CT, the scan shows three-dimensional images of the colon.

Dr. Alan Steljes, a cardiologist at the Heart Center of Nevada and consultant for BodyScan, says the heart scan offers "an element that was missing in preventive health care" because it gives physicians an unprecedented look at the calcified plaque building up in a patient's coronary arteries. The information gives doctors a chance to treat patients in earlier stages of coronary disease.

"While there is mixed opinion because the heart scan is still very new, I think it is eventually going to become part of our standard diagnostic material," Steljes said.

But as for consumer-driven body scanning, Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Society, says the controversy is more likely to stick.

"Obviously it's good that consumers are taking an active role in their health care. But you shouldn't try to do this on your own. There is a lot of information out in the world that is inaccurate and misleading," Matheis said. "People should consult their physicians first. And if there are symptoms, then they should get medical consultation and get the approprate medical procedures."