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Technological Advances Promote Growing Use of Interventional Radiology.

Technological innovations that support more sophisticated and rapid imaging are progressively widening the application area of interventional radiology and boosting market expansion. Recent advances in imaging technology offer better viewing angles and are, therefore, yielding superior clinical information. Flat panel detectors provide better edge-enhanced and sharper pictures. The recent introduction of biplane imaging technology supports improved viewing angles, specially required for paediatric and neurological procedures.

"Advances in the field of medical instrumentation and in radiological imaging technology have led to the rapid development of interventional procedures," notes the analyst of this research. "Consequently, the market in Europe is growing steadily due to the large number of cost-effective interventional procedures being performed in lieu of surgery." Interventional radiology offers multiple benefits; it can be used for diagnosis as well as for therapy. The rising number of minimally invasive and outpatient-based procedures in Europe is having positive ripple effect on interventional radiology, since the latter are minimally invasive procedures and can performed on an out-patient basis. Moreover, some or most interventional radiology procedures can be used as alternatives for surgery, with patients increasingly opting for the former.

Cardiac Interventional Radiology to Power Overall Market Growth

More than 40 per cent of Europe’s population suffers from cardiac diseases, with such patients preferring minimally invasive imaging procedures for related diagnosis and therapy. Accordingly, investments in innovative, non-invasive and minimally invasive technologies are rising even as the demand for interventional procedures that can be performed in daily surgeries and help reduce hospital costs, shorten in-patient stays and accelerate patient recovery times are in demand. Cardiac interventional radiology, which currently generates over 50 per cent of market revenues, is poised to drive the overall interventional radiology market. It represents the fastest growing segment in the market.

Three key challenges await market participants: providing products that can be integrated with picture archiving and communication systems ( PACS ), electronic medical records ( EMR ) and other hospital IT systems; ensuring a large pool of well-trained radiologists and, producing cost-effective equipment with good specifications for budget-constrained hospitals. "Producing a fully functional system and then assembling it according to the needs of the end users would make it easier for both industry participants as well as end users," states the analyst. "Hereby, vendors will help end users in reducing costs, saving time per procedure and maximising equipment usage." To overcome the problem of equipment being under-utilised due to the shortage of properly trained radiologists, efforts will need to be made to provide regular information about emerging offerings.

Source: Research and Markets

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