Recent news that CT scans for smokers can detect lung cancer early raises questions of who should be getting these tests and when. One answer is, ‘test me for everything, just in case.’

There were businesses catering to that market a few years ago, pushing full-body CT scans to the public, for a few hundred dollars. What harm could that do?

Quite a lot, actually. This post in Slate.com explains why.

There’s one set of risks that apply to individuals and another to the system as a whole. A good doctor or nurse practitioner orders tests for the benefit of the individual patient, and based on the clinical picture.

It may become standard practice to order CT scans for smokers. The big picture will become clearer in coming years.