According to an article published March in the Archives of Internal Medicine - "More often than not, incidental findings do more harm than good, leading to unnecessary imaging and excessive angst". According to me this is debatable. Lot of times we radiologists are referred scans for example ureteric calculus and we point out lytic lesion in the vertebrae or bulky adrenal or some nodules in the lung base which point towards the diagnosis which was previously unsuspected. Further, i disagree with the comment made by the authors- "non-indicated physiology in imaging may be better off behind a dark screen rather than seen as a free screen". Think of us radiologists as analogous to crime scene investigator, you cannot just ask me to look at one aspect and ignore all other incidental findings. On the other hand it is one of the advantages of an expert radiologist reading a study that he can report incidental unsuspected findings as well.
Another persepctive of the article is available here-AIM: Should radiology ignore incidental findings?
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