Enter Your Email Address to Receive a
Copy of MedicExhange Member Demograhpics

An estimated 17.7 million nuclear medicine procedures were performed during 15.2 million patient visits in the United States in 2006. An estimated 17.7 million nuclear medicine procedures were performed during 15.2 million patient visits in the United States in 2006, in 7,320 hospital and non-hospital sites, according to a report just released by IMV Medical Information Division.

This represents a 12 per cent decrease in patient visits, from 17.2 million patient visits in 2005 to 15.2 million patient visits in 2006. The drop in patient visits appears to be temporary, as IMV projects the number will rise this year, based on survey results through July, to 16.3 million in 2007, which is still below the 2005 level.

"Nuclear medicine utilization (not including PET procedures) is continuing to be dominated by cardiovascular applications, which have grown from 54 per cent of 2002 procedures to 60 per cent in 2006," observed Lorna Young, Senior Director, Market Research, IMV Medical Information Division. “However, the drop in total nuclear medicine patient visits from 2005 levels may be, in part, due to pre-certification requirements from health insurance companies, which require patients to obtain insurer approval for imaging services prior to scheduling their procedure. Insurance companies are increasingly requiring that patients obtain pre-certification approval for certain imaging procedures, such as nuclear medicine. Oncology is the second major application of nuclear medicine procedures, and other modalities, such as PET/CT, may be cannibalizing some oncology procedures that previously belonged solely to nuclear medicine.”

The report describes trends in nuclear medicine patient visits by procedure type, radiopharmaceutical and pharmacological stress agent utilization, camera and computer installed base by manufacturer and year of installation, planned purchases, networking, and site operations characteristics.

The report also covers adoption trends of new technologies including SPECT/CT. Highlights include:

• The average number of nuclear imaging cameras installed per site is 1.8 units.
  
• Sixty per cent of the patient visits were for cardiovascular studies, including cardiac perfusion.
  
• Replacement activity is active, comprising over three-quarters of purchase activity for cameras.
  
• While dual-head SPECT cameras are the most preferred camera type being considered, comprising over two-thirds of the planned cameras, SPECT/CT is starting to emerge, comprising over 10 per cent of the cameras installed in 2007 to date.
  
• Radiopharmaceutical budgets are showing continued growth, as the proportion of sites with budgets of $250,000 or more has increased from 15 per cent to 32 per cent of the sites.
  
• Two-thirds of the nuclear medicine sites have the capability to transmit nuclear medicine images to other locations.

The data source for this report is IMV’s 2007/08 Nuclear Medicine Census Database, which provides comprehensive profiles of nuclear medicine sites in the United States. The database can be licensed by qualified subscribers and includes contact and site-specific information. Applications of the database include market development, targeted marketing, lead generation, installed base marketing programs, sales territory deployment and competitive analysis.

IMV's 2007 Nuclear Medicine Market Summary Report is available with the database license, or as a separate purchase.

The report compares nationwide trends from this recent census with the ten prior census surveys that IMV has conducted since 1990.

• Click here for more information about the Nuclear Medicine Census Database and Market Summary Report.