CT Procedures Rise, While System Purchases Fall

March 20, 2008 – The number of CT procedures performed continues to grow despite a slow down in CT system purchases from 2000 to 2008 in the U.S. as CT sites focus on the efficient utilization of their CT equipment, indicated a report by the IMV Medical Information Division.
An estimated 68.7 million CT procedures were performed in 7,640 hospital and non-hospital sites in 2007, said the report. This represents an average annual growth rate of approximately 8 percent since 2003, when an estimated 50.1 million procedures were performed.
“It appears that CT capital budgets for 2008 are smaller than in prior years, indicating a slowing down of actual purchase activity for replacement and additional units,” said Lorna Young, senior director, Market Research. “From 2000 to 2008, the proportion of CT sites having zero dollars budgeted for CT scanners increased from 51 percent to 83 percent. Based on an installed base of over 10,000 CT units and an average replacement cycle of 7 years, there is a large installed base that could be replacing their units at an average rate of over1,400 units per year. However, the proportion of sites actually budgeting for replacement units is slowing. Over the last five years, CT sales were largely driven by sites acquiring multislice CT units, as the number of multislice CTs grew from 27 percent of the 2002 installed base to 81 percent of the current CT installed base. It appears that purchase activity has slowed, as CT sites focus on the efficient utilization of their CT equipment.”
IMV’s 2007 CT Market Summary Report described trends the following trends:
• CT angiography procedures are performed by two thirds of the CT sites.
• Two-thirds of the CT procedures performed in 2007 used contrast media, including injectable and oral contrast.
• Over half of the CTs installed in 2007 were multislice CTs with 64 or more slices.
• The large amount of data from volumetric scanning places increased demand on processing the data. Two thirds of the CT sites use workstations for processing and displaying CT images, with 3D software as an essential capability.

For more information: www.imvinfo.com