why ask about cancer before mri?

Answer 1

It's just a screening question. The radiologist (x-ray doc) needs to know if there is any personal history of cancer to help diagnosis. Also, contrast you receive in MR might react with some cancer treatments.

Answer 2

when doing a mri the doctor suspects by the symptoms that you give what might be wrong.. so he will touch on the subject so it wont be such a shock ...Head. MRI can look at the brain for tumors, an aneurysm, bleeding in the brain, nerve injury, and other problems, such as damage caused by a stroke. MRI can also find problems of the eyes and optic nerves, and the ears and auditory nerves.
Chest. An MRI of the chest can look at the heart, the valves, and coronary blood vessels. It can show if the heart or lungs are damaged. MRI of the chest may also be used to look for breast or lung cancer.
Blood vessels. Using an MRI to look at blood vessels and the flow of blood through them is called magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA). It can find problems of the arteries and veins, such as an aneurysm, a blocked blood vessel, or a torn lining of a blood vessel (dissection). Sometimes contrast material is used to see the blood vessels more clearly.
Abdomen and pelvis. MRI can find problems in the organs and structures in the belly, such as the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, kidneys, and bladder. It is used to find tumors, bleeding, infection, and blockage. In women, it can look at the uterus and ovaries. In men, it looks at the prostate.
Bones and joints. MRI can check for problems of the bones and joints, such as arthritis, problems with the temporomandibular joint, bone marrow problems, bone tumors, cartilage problems, torn ligaments or tendons, or infection. MRI can also tell if a bone is broken if an X-ray cannot. MRI is done more commonly than other tests to check some bone and joint problems.
Spine. MRI can check the discs and nerves of the spine for conditions such as spinal stenosis, disc bulges, and spinal tumors.