[Carry_Okie]

I wonder what the true loaded cost of a regular colonoscopy is compared to one of these scans. I would bet that it is far more, especially when the risk of infection from an invasive procedure is considered, a risk that is elevating so rapidly that it may be unknown.

Unfortunately, the medical payments system is using required invasive hospital procedures to depreciate the cost of fixed capital and to help carry the cost of treating illegal aliens in emergency rooms. I seriously doubt that a fair economic cost/benefit analysis is possible, especially considering the array of vested interests involved.

[Maynerd]

As usual the NYT's reporter is rather ignorant and uninformed and only reporting half of the story. It is t rue that a "whole body" ct scan sham is not good evidenced based medicine.

However, targeted focused ct scans have an important and growing role in disease detection screening. Namely, virtual colonoscopy (ct scan) is a quicker, cheaper, and a less time consuming surrogate than endoscopic colonoscopy (make sure it's performed on a state of the art 16 or 64 channel mutidetector ct with 3d workstation software).

In addition, a cardiac coronary artery calcium score is a good independent predictor of coronary artery disease. And can help stratify those patients who need statin therapy.

As with anything in medicine - get educated and ask around.

[Doctor Raoul]

I would bet that it is far more, especially when the risk of infection from an invasive procedure is considered, a risk that is elevating so rapidly that it may be unknown.

So Couric and the colonoscopy is a chicken and the egg kind of thing?