A 35-year-old Manhattan man who paid $2,500 for a full-body MRI scan marketed as an early-warning health check later suffered a catastrophic stroke, prompting a lawsuit that raises fresh questions about the limits of celebrity-endorsed preventive scans, according to court filings.
Sean Clifford underwent a Prenuvo whole-body scan in July 2023, which reported no major issues, but eight months later he experienced a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed; his lawsuit alleges that signs of dangerous narrowing in his cerebral arteries were visible on the scan but were missed by the company and the doctor hired to interpret it.
The Prenuvo defendants “should have reasonably known about the safety hazards or risks of injury presented by the misinterpretation of the Prenuvo MRI scans by its machines,” the suit claims, with a radiologist cited in the filing calling the report “an obvious miss.” Prenuvo has denied the allegations, saying it “take[s] any allegation seriously” and is committed to addressing the matter through the courts, while a judge has allowed the case to proceed.
The lawsuit has intensified debate over full-body scans, which critics including the American College of Radiology warn can provide false reassurance or trigger unnecessary follow-up care, even as the company continues to attract high-profile endorsements from celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Cindy Crawford and Paris Hilton.