Market Analysis: PET/CT Scanners

The global market for standalone PET scanners is declining continuously. Health care market researcher Markets and Markets predicts that the PET market will be taken over by PET/CT by 2017, driven by demand overseas, in its report on the PET and SPECT market. Similarly, the SPECT/CT combined modality is driving the SPECT market.

In 2003, the year PET/CT technology was introduced, one third of all installed PET scanners were PET/ CT scanners. Now, more than 90 percent of fixed units are PET/CTs.

An estimated 1,744,000 clinical PET patient studies were performed in the U.S. in 2010, according to IMV Medical Information Division. These PET studies were performed in 2,085 hospital and non-hospital sites, using fixed or mobile PET/CT or PET scanners.

“The estimated 1,744,000 clinical PET patient studies performed in 2010 represent a 14.7 percent increase over IMV’s estimate of 1,520,800 patient studies performed in 2008, for an average annual growth rate of 7.1 percent over the two years,” said Lorna Young, senior director, Market Research at IMV. “This represents a slowing in the annual growth rate for PET patient studies, as the average annual rate between 2005 and 2008 was 10.4 percent. However, the annual 7 percent rate for procedures is still a significant growth rate, in an era of increased scrutiny of third party insurers in their pre-authorization processes.”

Currently, PET technology is used primary for oncology applications, which comprise 95 percent of PET studies. Neurology and cardiology applications make up the remaining 5 percent, which are likely to become a larger proportion of the studies to be performed, as other radiopharmaceutical tracers, such as PET agents for Alzheimer’s, become approved for clinical use.

When the study was conducted, 94 percent of PET patient studies used radiopharmaceuticals purchased from an outside supplier, while 6 percent were obtained from cyclotrons on site...

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