The epidemiology and impact on participants and health services of potentially serious incidental findings on brain and body magnetic resonance imaging in the UK Biobank cohort study. (360G-Wellcome-107190_Z_15_Z)

Medical imaging used for clinical diagnosis, in research, and in screening programmes may reveal incidental findings (IF) which are unrelated to the aims of the imaging. There is limited evidence to inform the management of IF. The influence on prevalence of IF of participant characteristics (age, sex, lifestyle etc.) and of training and expertise of the viewers is not known. Whilst IF may be finally diagnosed as serious disease, an unknown proportion may never have caused harm. Doctors may fee l duty-bound to investigate IF and reach a final diagnosis, but the magnitude of increased health service use and cost compared to a control population is unknown. There are limited data on the impact of IF on participants' emotional well being, jobs, ability and cost of obtaining insurance, and mortality. I will use internally collected and linked UK Biobank data to address these evidence gaps in order to inform the management of IF. These data will be relevant to people deciding to undergo ima ging in a clinical, research or health screening context, and to doctors and researchers who need to manage IF and consider their impact on health services.