CDC: Advanced imaging has 'increased dramatically' in last decade

The use of advanced imaging modalities such as MRI, CT and PET have “increased dramatically” in physician offices and hospital emergency and outpatient departments over the last decade, according to an annual report on U.S. health issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC took data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey to analyze the trends in advanced imaging use from 1996-2007.

According to the CDC, the use of advanced imaging scanning during visits to physician offices and outpatient departments more than tripled from 1996-2007. During the same period of time, the use of these advanced imaging scans during emergency department visits increased fivefold among adults under 65 years of age and quadrupled among adults 65 years of age and over.

The CDC found that in 2007, 12 percent of emergency department visits among persons under the age of 65 and 26 percent of those visits by persons over 65 included advanced imaging scans.

The increase in scanning has been accompanied by an increase in the number of available scanning units. In 2006, there were more than 7,000 sites offering MRI, with an estimated 27 million MRI procedures performed In 2007, while more than 10,000 CT units were in operation at more than 7,600 hospital and nonhospital sites. "And the availability of PET and other imaging modalities has been steadily increasing," the CDC reported.

The CDC also reported that Medicare Part B spending for imaging services under the physician fee schedule more than doubled between 2000 and 2006, from $6.9 billion to $14.1 billion.