Happened to my mother's second husband. Tho, as sibling comment points out, that came down to avoiding medical treatment for something quite painful for so long that it became life-threatening.
I was willing to seek medical care for the ongoing pain of TMJ and I didn't because what I can afford is one Dr visit & one RX for generic opioids (the only treatment that touches that pain).
But there was no point. The only Dr I could afford became terrified of prescribing opioids (thanks DEA. yes it was the DEA). No matter that I had, for years and years, taken opioids responsibly.
However it's no longer a problem. That only Dr - that countless thousands of us could afford to visit - just closed up shop.
This is key here. As a general rule of thumb is some information has no influence on the course of action then it is useless, as interesting as it may be. In this case you have the odd chance of that 5 year exam catching the problem at just the right time, but the overwhelming probability is that it will even show nothing (in which case you do nothing) or that you are about to die (in which case you can do nothing).
Not all that obvious. We actually do have statistics on how X-ray scans affect your cancer odds. Full-body scans and other intense X-rays can have a 1 in 1000 chance of killing you in a couple of decades; most doctors won't consider them unless the condition they're hoping to diagnose is more dangerous than that.
Unfortunately not. Folks have some odd beliefs about medicine and with this, it isn't unlikely that a certain percentage of folks get cancer from medical treatments. I imagine that number is less in the modern world than it was before I was born. We did use Xrays to check how shoes fit, after all.
