Early Cancer Detection with MRI and AI: How Preventative Scans Are Transforming Women’s Health

If you’re considering preventative scans or already dealing with concerns about cancer or chronic disease, this is a conversation you need to hear.

Too often, we wait for symptoms before investigating what’s really going on inside our bodies. But with new advances in imaging and AI, early detection is more possible and accessible than ever. Many women still don’t realize how proactive screening can actually save lives, reduce treatment severity, and give us control over our own health story.

In this episode, you’ll learn why early detection is critical, how new MRI technology works, and what you can actually do to improve your long-term health, starting today.

Key Takeaways

• Early detection of cancer saves lives and offers better outcomes.

• MRI scans are now faster, safer, and more affordable thanks to AI.

• These full-body scans detect more than cancer, including chronic diseases.

• Preventative scans empower women to take control of their health before symptoms appear.

• Results are delivered in clear, understandable language with actionable next steps.

The Power of Early Detection

For decades, cancer screening lagged behind prevention efforts for other diseases. [] explains how many cancers like pancreatic, ovarian, and brain have no routine screening tools. That means most cases go undiagnosed until late stages, when treatment options are limited and outcomes are much worse.

Today, advanced MRI technology is changing that reality. These scans evaluate 13 organs in under 25 minutes, without harmful radiation. With annual screening, subtle changes can be caught early, often before symptoms emerge. This empowers women to intervene at the earliest possible stage.

How Preventative MRI Scans Work

Advances in AI have made MRI screenings more accessible. [] describes how AI-driven protocols streamline the scans, making them comprehensive yet efficient. What used to take hours and cost thousands now takes less than 30 minutes and costs under $1000.

The process is simple: sign up, complete a safety questionnaire, and get referred to a local imaging center, now available in over 200 locations. Board-certified radiologists review your images, while AI translates complex reports into everyday language, with clear recommendations for follow-up.

Looking Beyond Cancer: Health Insights

These scans don’t just detect cancer. They provide data on chronic conditions like fatty liver, aneurysms, kidney health, and even signs of accelerated brain aging. For many women in midlife, this is a chance to track body composition changes, understand hormone-related shifts, and prevent future complications.

Even minor findings like constipation or sinus congestion can prompt simple lifestyle changes that protect long-term health. [] shares her own experience leveraging the data to make proactive choices, from increasing fiber to following up with doctors about potential kidney issues.

Why Women Need Proactive Screening

Women face unique health challenges as we age. From breast and ovarian cancer to metabolic shifts during perimenopause, the ability to monitor what’s happening inside, not just react to symptoms, can be game-changing. Early intervention leads to less aggressive treatment, lower healthcare costs, and more years of healthy living.

These tools are not a replacement for mammograms or colonoscopies but a powerful addition to routine care, especially for hard-to-detect conditions that historically went unnoticed.

“This isn’t just about finding cancer early. It’s about giving women knowledge and the power to act before illness ever starts.”

What You’ll Learn

• How AI makes MRI cancer screening faster, safer, and more affordable

• What a full-body preventative scan covers, and what it doesn’t

• The importance of annual monitoring for long-term healt

• How to interpret your scan results and talk to your doctor

• Real-life examples of early detection saving lives

• Strategies to overcome fear or uncertainty about proactive screenings

• Ways to prioritize investment in your health and longevity

Why This Matters

Women in midlife experience rising risks for certain cancers and chronic diseases, often without clear warning signs. Proactive, whole-body screening can reveal silent threats and clue you into subtle changes tied to hormones or aging.

Long-term, taking control of our health journeys not only improves life expectancy but reduces the burden of late-stage disease physically, emotionally, and financially. Preventative scans empower women with knowledge to make informed, confident choices.

About Dr. Chung

Dr. Danna Chung is a practicing physician, cancer screening expert, and Chief Medical Officer at Ezra Health. Her work is driven by personal experience and a passion for advancing proactive healthcare solutions for families around the world.

Links & Resources

Function Health

Ezra $100 off scan code: NatalieT100 (mentioned in episode)

Want to Go Deeper?

For products and tools I trust to support cellular health, metabolism, and overall wellness, visit my resource page.

If this episode helped you think differently about early cancer detection, share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Transcript

Natalie Tysdal (02:39)

Dr. Chung, is a pleasure. I've been looking forward to this for months.

Danna Chung (02:44)

same here, I'm so thrilled we can finally do this.

Natalie Tysdal (02:46)

So as a reporter, a health journalist, I'm all about the data. I like the science. And as a woman, I prefer to know what's going on in my body, what the lab results are. I enjoy. Some people don't want all of the data, but what you're doing and preventative scans, explain it to me and also tell me how you got into this in the medical world.

Danna Chung (03:11)

Yeah, so I joined Ezra, which is now part of function as a physician because I wanted to do exactly what you just said. I just wanted to help shift health care from always reacting to disease toward proactively helping people so that we can all live to be 100. And then personally, my own family was blindsided by cancer in 2024, like so many families. I have young children. So I decided at that point, I really wanted to pivot my career as a doctor and also as a mother into finding better cancer screening options.

for my family, for your family, for families everywhere. So I joined Ezra, which is now part of function, and they've united to use advanced imaging such as MRI to help people find potential cancer and chronic disease earlier. We believe that cancer's biggest weakness is early detection.

The earlier you find a cancer, the better outcome. This we know. We could be looking at an 85 to 90 % survival rate for early stage cancer like kidney cancer, but then that drops to 10 to 15 % or lower for late stage cancer that's already spread. And it's...

Still unbelievable that for over half of all cancers, there's still no available screening tool. We have tests like mammogram, pap smear, colonoscopy. Those are excellent screening tests, but what about everything else? Brain, pancreatic ovarian. So for these, we've always just had to wait to develop symptoms to start the investigation. But most of these cancers are silent until they're late stage.

Natalie Tysdal (04:41)

Yeah.

Danna Chung (04:42)

so this is why we wanted to have these MRI scans to help fill that screening gap, because we can literally

visualize any structural changes that are happening. And MRI is great because it has no harmful radiation, so this can be done annually. It's the power of seeing. Cancer has fewer places to hide. And earlier detection would create more opportunities for cure, can potentially reduce the physical and emotional toll of chemotherapy, radiation, lower your medical bills, and then most importantly, we want to shift the narrative from I have cancer to I had cancer.

Natalie Tysdal (05:17)

Absolutely. So it's interesting to me how AI is doing. I mean, it's interesting to everyone, right? It's changing

Danna Chung (05:25)

Yes.

Natalie Tysdal (05:25)

so much. is AI, how are you using that in these MRIs? And then I will tell everyone I did this.

Danna Chung (05:33)

Mm-hmm.

Natalie Tysdal (05:33)

I did your scan a couple of months ago. Fascinating and easy. And I'll talk more about that. But tell me about the AI portion of this.

Danna Chung (05:41)

Yes, so for us currently, AI helps improve our imaging efficiency. It helps us improve our accessibility and workflow. So traditionally, if you were to do this type of screening for MRI, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars because you're in the machine for hours. And so what we've done is we've leveraged AI to try to help us build a protocol which will really sort of capture the high yield shots, the high yield images that we need to be able to screen

comprehensively, but in a fast time so that it makes it more accessible for people and more affordable. And then we have a FDA cleared AI that actually improves the image quality so that we can scan quickly, but not compromise image quality. then on the other end, have have human board certified radiologists read the images, but we then use AI to help us translate that medical terminology that nobody understands into

something that's understandable so that then when our medical providers follow up with you, you have a report that actually you can understand and that it's clear in terms of what the recommendations and next steps are.

Natalie Tysdal (06:54)

Okay, so someone decides, I wanna do this scan. I wanna see what's going on in my body. What does that process, and I can explain what the process looked like for me, but in the business model, what does that process look like for someone who's like, I just wanna know. Is it paid

Danna Chung (07:10)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (07:10)

for by insurance? I know it's affordable more so than ever, and I know that's probably something you're working on, but tell us more about the process.

Danna Chung (07:18)

Yeah, so again, we believe that people should be able to proactively look inside their bodies like you said to get more data knowledge is power so we don't want them to have to wait for symptoms or Go through the traditional health care model where symptoms are the trigger to start this investigation So you can sign up on our website at function health calm this is

direct to consumer, so you pay, this is not through insurance, but it's still a medical procedure. So what we have you do is we fill out a medical questionnaire. Our primary first goal is to make sure this is safe for you. is it possible for you to get an MRI scan? We also offer CT, so is that an issue with the low dose radiation? So we'll first evaluate whether or not this is a safe scan for you and an appropriate scan, because perhaps you're actually using this for the wrong indication.

We would not want you to use this, for instance, to see if you have a broken bone. That's more of an urgent case and you need to actually just talk to your primary care doctor about that type of scan. So we'll evaluate that and then we'll go ahead and we partner with third party imaging facilities. So we'll send that medical order.

to the facility where you'll go and then receive your scan. We do that because we're able to scale and try to make this available in as many locations as possible. We're in over 200 locations in the country and also in the UK. And so by partnering with other facilities, we're able to actually scale up quickly and make this hopefully in a city near you. once you have that scan, then

It's read by the radiologist and then comes back to our medical team to help us come up with a translated report that makes it easy for you to understand.

Natalie Tysdal (09:07)

So more of what the test, the MRI scan detects. Give me, there's,

Danna Chung (09:11)

Look. Yes.

Natalie Tysdal (09:14)

know there is a lot, but give me some ideas.

Danna Chung (09:17)

Yeah, so we have our MRI to evaluate 13 organs in about 22 minutes. So that's going to include your brain, thyroid, liver, pancreas, kidneys, if you're a man, your prostate, breast, ovaries, and uterus. We also have some expanded scans that evaluate the spine, the hips, the knees, body composition to know how much fat versus muscle you have. For those of us in perimenopause, there's a shift, so I know that's a lot of interest. Aneurysm, because those can be fatal.

and brain age to know whether or not your brain is showing advanced aging. So what we're doing is looking for any structural changes that look for possible early cancer, but also for signs of chronic disease. So we can see whether or not you might have fatty liver, which is a precursor to possible cirrhosis. We can look to see whether or not there are other types of chronic conditions that may not be cancer but still need to be tracked.

Natalie Tysdal (10:16)

So I'll tell everyone a little bit of my experience. So again, 20 minutes, the center that I went to is 15 minutes from my house. And I'm slightly claustrophobic. I like to say I'm not fully, but I think I'm more nervous about it, but I didn't have any problems with the scan. And I got it back. You get the scan back within a week, right? It was like three or four days later. And

there were some interesting findings. So thankfully, I'm very grateful there were no cancers that were detected. I, my, I, so I took, I took the scan then to my doctor and said, will you go over this with me? And I had read through lot of it, but I wanted him to see it. And I had some sinus congestion and he said, are you, do you feel like you're having issues with your sinuses? I said,

No, he said, well, then we don't really need to talk about that. But if you were having sensitivity or sinusitis or things like that. So that was interesting. I must have some swollen things going on there. But probably the most interesting thing was the possibility of hydrofrenosis. And maybe you can tell people more what that has to do in the kidneys, which led to another test. I was nervous about that. It all turned out clear.

but I had some cysts in my kidneys that they were worried was causing some problems. Do you see things like that very often?

Danna Chung (11:45)

Yeah, so there is a concern sometimes whenever there might be a blockage of the drainage out of the kidney that it can actually back up and sort of like a balloon and get larger. It sounds like in your case, it was more fluid filled cysts that were visualized, which was great to have confirmation because whenever you are having that hydroendocrine, there's a possibility that then you'll end up having issues with your kidney and kidney disease. And so you definitely would want to intervene if that's the

case, but we do see things like this frequently. So you mentioned sinuses. We've seen things that are not cancer but actually still concerning like a...

very low grade brain bleed for someone who had actually fallen several months earlier and hit their head, but didn't think anything of it, that actually ended up needing to be treated. And then again, like I mentioned, some of the changes that are in the organs that may not be an issue in terms of symptoms, but certainly could become. So gallstones could be another one, but we've seen it also where it's causing a blockage of the bile duct. And so that could lead to gallbladder infection.

which could then become an emergency. we are again scanning the organs. Certainly the original intention was to look for early signs of cancer, but we're going to see all of the other potential issues as well.

Natalie Tysdal (13:12)

Yeah, I was just so fascinated. Even just looking at the pictures, I could see my brain. I was like, wow. I just think the images are fascinating. So I did that follow-up test. Everything turned out to be fine. I want to mention, because I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with a cancer. he woke up one day and lost feeling in his legs. They found a cyst, a cancerous tumor actually, on his spine.

something like that could have been detected. He actually then went in for treatment and it was, it's too difficult to do surgery. Then they detected it in his bladder. And so this is something that had probably, we won't know, had probably been growing for years. Would something like that have shown up? And how often are you suggesting someone do these scans so that we can see cancer early on?

Danna Chung (14:12)

Yeah, so we have actually found bladder cancer in some of our scans and we've seen exactly what your friend experienced where we've seen evidence of cancer that's spread already to the spine and so that has been from a primary source and certainly there are cancers that are quite aggressive so those would be things like pancreatic and ovarian cancer and then there's a more slow growing. What we recommend is that you start with a baseline scan so

that everyone can see what is your baseline anatomy, what's normal for you. And then we recommend that you track annual scans. Again, MRI doesn't have any harmful radiation, so you track an annual scan so that we can see whether or not there are changes over time and then determine whether or not something just needs to be monitored, is it stable, or what might need urgent follow-up. And so again,

The ability to catch things early makes a big difference in terms of the outcomes.

Natalie Tysdal (15:12)

It seems like such a win-win. I I know, I remember when I used to hear about like people saying, you don't need mammograms every year. Well, now we know you need the mammogram, which by the way, would this detect breast cancer?

Danna Chung (15:28)

So we are doing the head and the neck, but because of the motion artifact that's in the chest and then also for breasts really, a specific breast MRI is more.

Natalie Tysdal (15:41)

Yeah.

Danna Chung (15:41)

accurate.

So we are not doing the breast, but we certainly want everyone to still proceed with their mammogram. If they have dense breasts, they may need a breast ultrasound. This is not replacing any of the existing screening recommendations. Still get your colonoscopy. I am going to guess they're going to drop that age from 45 because we're still seeing

more and more younger people get colonoscopies. Pap smears. you

know, have a conversation with your physician on whether or not to get a PSA for prostate screening. We also do that lab at function as well. But again, not all of the organs that we're seeing these cancers in, it seems like an increasingly younger people, we don't have a test for them. So this is sort

Natalie Tysdal (16:25)

Yeah.

Danna Chung (16:26)

of a way to fill that gap.

Natalie Tysdal (16:27)

Yeah. So I want to talk about investing in your health and the price because, you know, I'm a big believer, but I'm a health journalist. So of course I'm a big believer in if I'm going to save money and spend, I'm going to spend it on healthy food and spend it on preventative things instead of, you know, redoing the landscaping in my backyard or whatever.

Danna Chung (16:46)

You

Natalie Tysdal (16:47)

I'm going to use the money in that way. the cost. I know.

Danna Chung (16:50)

I'm looking at all the weeds that are growing in my yard.

Natalie Tysdal (16:52)

or you don't want

to see mine because I mean, we want to live longer. We want to feel better. We want to be healthier. I'm hoping and praying that one day insurance will cover this and that our health care will realize how important something like this is. But for someone who's thinking, OK, really, how much is it? How much is it?

Danna Chung (17:11)

Yes, yeah.

So again, like I mentioned, the key here has been actually trying to come up with a protocol that can make this scan fast, but at high quality. And so something that typically had cost thousands of dollars, we're now able to drop to less than $1,000. And you mentioned the claustrophobia. 22 minutes in a scanner seems to be...

sort of an easier timeframe for people to tolerate. I mean, I personally, I just close my eyes and

Natalie Tysdal (17:39)

Yeah.

Danna Chung (17:39)

I'm completely unplugged. So I find it relaxing, but I understand that it can be nerve wracking for some people, but you know, we're working to even shorten that time and shorten the costs. So we want to try to make this available for as many people as possible.

And we do hope that insurance will come around, that usually takes, even decades to chur, because what they want to look for is long-term outcomes. And so until then, let's try to get this to as many people as possible.

Natalie Tysdal (18:09)

Yeah,

can you be a great gift for someone?

Danna Chung (18:12)

Yes, yeah, we actually were just, you I gifted it to my mother and I think, you know, we just sort of, I think there's no better gift than the gift of health, right? And so

Natalie Tysdal (18:23)

Yeah.

Danna Chung (18:25)

I would strongly encourage for people to consider using this as a way to sort of pay it forward. If you've had a scan and you found it very useful, you know, sort of pay it forward so that we can try to have as many people screened as possible.

Natalie Tysdal (18:40)

Well, before I went down the mammogram path, I wanted to ask you, why are some people opposed to it? I mean, think years ago, we heard about doing mastectomies for someone

Danna Chung (18:53)

Mm-hmm.

Natalie Tysdal (18:53)

who had the BRCA gene. And people were like, why would you? And now that's pretty common. Like, we make these decisions based on knowledge and what we have. But why are some people opposed to doing preventative scans?

Danna Chung (19:07)

So, I I think that there is some element of fear. There are some people who would rather not know, but I think the...

The issue is that knowledge without context can be anxiety provoking. But if you have knowledge with knowing the context, with knowing what your next step should be, then that should be empowering. I think, now, I mean, I think we all can admit that there could be a more comfortable test than a mammogram, right? So some people actually, it's just, it's not a desirable procedure, I think. But that being said, just we know the benefits. We know that this is a very sensitive.

tests for breast cancer. know breast cancer is the highest frequency breast cancer in women. And we're seeing it in sort of younger people. And I think that we should encourage everyone to be able to make this a priority. There are still so many women who do not get mammograms, even though it's available. It's part of your insurance.

Natalie Tysdal (20:17)

Mm-hmm.

Danna Chung (20:18)

preventive screening. So I think just trying to shift the narrative to be proactive about your health, that knowledge is empowering and you know help with some of the discomfort that people may have or the fear that they may have.

Natalie Tysdal (20:32)

Yeah, I again, like I started with just when you have knowledge, you can do something about it. One of the other things found a couple of just small things that my scan found was just constipation. I didn't really

Danna Chung (20:44)

Mm.

Natalie Tysdal (20:45)

know. I mean, I don't feel like I have that. But now I've increased my fiber. I've increased some magnesium. Like think simple things you can do once you have that knowledge that will help you overall. Because obviously toxins build up if you're not emptying regularly.

So, so many little things and the big things. So I'm a big believer. I thought your process was really simple. I think the report and what you all have done with just the pictures, the images that come in, and then the very simple explanation of each of those things,

Danna Chung (21:22)

Mm-hmm.

Natalie Tysdal (21:23)

that was really well done.

Danna Chung (21:25)

Thank you. I'm so happy to hear that because that is our goal, right? Is to just sort of make this as seamless as a process that people actually do this. They repeat it so that they're not just getting one snapshot in time, but ongoing longitudinal care and to reduce some of that anxiety by providing easy to understand report with the next steps.

Natalie Tysdal (21:48)

Yeah, well, anything else about the business, about the scan, the future of what you all are doing or hopes that you have that would be interesting for us to learn?

Danna Chung (21:57)

Yeah, so what was really exciting was the union between Function and Ezra, right? So Function has a membership where they do 160 biomarkers. So these are labs that aren't necessarily part of the traditional annual visit. They're looking at advanced lipid markers, things that are actually beyond the traditional LDL and triglycerides, so that you can actually have a more

detailed look and be more proactive to determine whether or not maybe you actually do need to be more aggressive about your lipids. What we're doing here is by actually having the functional markers of how your body is and then the structural with the visual of the imaging. You combine those, we really feel like now you've got a full...

deep insight into your health. I mentioned the lipids. One of the other things that we offer, we do offer low dose CTs. the number one killer of men and women is not cancer, it's heart disease. So it's one in five women will die of heart disease. So we offer coronary artery calcium score. So this is a way to look for calcification in your arteries, which is a marker of your cardiovascular risk. If you pair that with this advanced lipid

testing, then really you have this opportunity for intervention, right, in terms of knowing early. We had a case of police officers. So police officers have a higher risk of heart disease. I think the stress and trauma of the job. so 45 year old no symptoms had a very high coronary calcium score, had no idea.

in the hospital later that week and get stented, right? And so they wrote to us to say that they feel like we saved them from a heart attack. And then lung cancer screening, we do that via CT, which is the gold standard, but lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death worldwide.

Currently, the only people who qualify for screening are smokers. And so we're seeing this concerning trend where it is younger people and more females who are getting lung cancer. And so we're offering that as a screening tool for people earlier because we feel like that is still a gap in the current health care system.

Natalie Tysdal (24:22)

Wow, just there's just so much and more on the horizon and I think embracing it where we can and saving for things like this instead of feeling like it's an expense, that it's an investment in your health.

Danna Chung (24:37)

Yes, yes, 100%. And I think that it really is sort of the best thing that you can do for yourself, but also for the people that rely on you, right? And it's, I think, just important to really prioritize our health.

Natalie Tysdal (24:56)

Yeah,

well, you all were nice enough to give us a code for anyone who is interested in in trying the Ezra test. It's $100 off. So if you're thinking about it and you're on the fence, this is your opportunity. And I will put the

the code in the show notes, but it's Natalie T. 100 for anybody who wants to try it out. And again, I'm so glad I did it. And I didn't realize that you recommend once a year. I can see why now. I was thinking, OK, I just did this. But I'm anxious to see it next year and see how things have changed, if they've changed, if I'm less constipated and how everything else is going to. I mean, I'm an open book about these things because I think it

It encourages people to do it and to know that there is help. But you have to have the knowledge first.

Danna Chung (25:51)

Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're doing to try to help people sort of understand this, but also get over their fear and prioritize their health.

Natalie Tysdal (26:01)

All right, well, I will put all the links, including its Ezra.com. Is it not?

Danna Chung (26:05)

So yes, it does work on but you can also actually book the scans on function health.

Natalie Tysdal (26:09)

Yes,

okay. Dr. Chung, thank you so much for your time. I know you're busy. Best of luck as the business grows. I'll be watching and I'd love to talk to you again soon.

Danna Chung (26:20)

I'd be happy to. Thank you, Natalie.