Although my Neko results are encouraging, the scan is limited to conditions that can be identified by blood tests or show up at a surface level. Thus, my search for an even more comprehensive answer leads me to the new London outpost of Prenuvo, just off Oxford Street. Prenuvo, like Ezra, offers full-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). For around £2,000, it will image up to 33 internal organs, including the brain, lungs, heart, liver, pancreas, prostate and lymph nodes, all in less than an hour. (In the US, you can also add full bloodwork for an extra $2,000.) As MRIs can see inside tissue, they can help spot problems before they show up via other means. And because, unlike X-rays or CT scans, there’s no radiation involved, they can be repeated as often as needed.
Originally founded in 2018, Prenuvo went viral in 2023 after Kim Kardashian posted an Instagram pic of herself in one of its clinics, declaring that the company “has really saved some of my friends’ lives… #NotAnAd”. Kardashian found an undiagnosed brain aneurysm, and since then, several other famous customers have posted about their findings. TikTok and Instagram now abound with similar stories, often with the hashtag #prenuvopartner. It’s canny marketing – Prenuvo’s senior team includes former execs from Juul, WeWork and TikTok – and has helped the company expand rapidly across the US, Canada and Australia, with plans to open in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Singapore.
If you have never had an MRI before, it is not fun. You are strapped to a bed, with a plate strapped to your chest and a headpiece over your face, with only a small window to see and breathe through. Then the Prenuvo technician pushes a button, and the bed slides into the scanner, where you will have to remain still for the next 45 to 50 minutes. Once the scan has started, the clunk and brrr of the machine is so loud it drowns out the Brooklyn Nine-Nine I have chosen to watch, so I squint at the subtitles, sweating and itchy. By the last 10 minutes I feel like Hannibal Lecter receiving brain surgery with a pneumatic drill.
Still, I’m told it’s worth it. “We are finding clinically actionable findings in about five per cent of people – one in 20,” Prenuvo’s Lacy tells me. “We’re able to diagnose cancer at stage one, when it’s typically asymptomatic. And some of the biggest lifesaving [things] that we find are pancreatic cancer, when it’s still operable; ovarian cancer, when it’s still confined to the ovary; and lung cancer, particularly in young female non-smokers, which is growing quite fast.”
Lacy, who is Australian, launched Prenuvo in 2018, having previously worked in tech start-ups. The idea for the business came after he went for an MRI scan himself – his radiologist, Dr Raj Attariwala, is Prenuvo’s cofounder. “People are coming to us because they’re worried they might have something,” says Lacy. “They might have indeterminate symptoms, and they’re not getting answers from the health system. So they’re being told either explicitly or implicitly that they’re fine, and they come to us to actually see if that’s true.”
There’s a word for people who feel like they’re sick, even when they’re told that they’re fine. “Hypochondriacs are one of those groups of people where, as a society, we’ve agreed that it’s OK to be mean to them,” says Nilsonne. “But also, anxiety is a very unpleasant feeling. So if you can help people not walk around with anxiety, then that’s a good thing.” And, while it’s a factor, he continued, “we wouldn’t have the waitlist we have now if it was only hypochondriacs.”
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