Dr. Warren Ringold battled cancer — twice. Then, he founded Bionicc Body Screening (bioniccbodyscreening.com) to help others avoid that same fight. Today, his son carries on his mission of offering proactive MRI screenings to detect problems early, when the treatment is less traumatic.
After retiring from family medicine after 40 years in 2017, Dr. Ringold partnered with an MRI facility that focused on imaging for sports and auto injuries, primarily spine, knee and shoulder injuries.
A year later, after becoming short of breath, he went to the hospital, only to discover he had stage-four cancer with hundreds of tumors throughout his chest and abdomen. Some were the size of softballs.
His cancer went into remission, but the treatments had been brutal. Then, a year later, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given two months to live. Luckily, he was able to enter an NIH study that put his cancer into remission once again.
In the meantime, Dr. Ringold heard of companies in Canada and California that offered full-body MRI screenings for early detection of cancer and other diseases. He realized that if his cancer had been detected earlier, the treatment would have been less severe with a more positive outcome. Not to mention easing the emotional turmoil faced by his family.
MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) uses magnets and radio waves to create detailed images of the body’s internal structures. Bionicc’s noninvasive, highly sensitive whole-body screenings cover a large area with several body regions with no exposure to ionizing radiation (unlike X-rays and CT scans).
Dr. Ringold added Bionicc Body Screening, based in Southfield, as a new division of the MRI clinic. Unfortunately, about a year later, in 2023, after contracting pneumonia, he passed away. His son, Ryan Ringold, took on the mission to honor his father's legacy as the center's CMO.
“He was passionate about it because it was personal for him,” the junior Ringold, who lives in Novi with his wife and two children, says about his father. “I didn't want to take a chance of what he created going by the wayside.”
Full-body screenings from Bionicc Body Screening use advanced MRI technology to scan the body from the top of the head through the pelvis. They image the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, hips, shoulders and spine. A screening is capable of detecting hundreds of abnormalities early, such as tumors, cysts, growths, aneurysms, risk of stroke, spinal disc disease, fatty liver, hiatal hernias and MS.
The screenings do not replace the preventative routine ones doctors order, like colonoscopies and mammograms. However, routine screenings only detect about 29 percent of cancers, and 71 percent of cancers occur in other areas like the pancreas, liver, brain and bladder.
Ringold mentioned a phone call from a gentleman who had a lung mass detected in his screening. It turned out to be cancer. He called to thank them for saving his life. His lung was removed, and he was going through treatment but was doing great.
Ringold adds, “He said, 'I just wanted to let you guys know that I never would have known until it was too late if I hadn't done the screening.' That is the reason why my father started this. He wanted to save lives, and he wanted individuals and their families to avoid all the pain and suffering he endured."