Medical Diagnostic Imaging is a non-evasive early disease detection technology that is used by physicians to take a look at their patients’ bodies to find the cause of the illness or injury. The global market for medical diagnostic imaging is large and is only increasing with developing countries adopting them fast. We will talk about the current 4 leading trends of medical diagnostic imaging that are driving this market.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
In recent years, AI has been to every technology industry and revolutionizing them. AI’s can read through thousands of scans in a very short time than humans and provide insights about the patient’s condition. Google DeepMind can detect eye diseases better than human doctors. It can also read 3D retinal OCT scans and diagnose 50 different ophthalmic conditions with 99% accuracy.
iCAD’s ProFound AI can detect cancer earlier by 8 percent and save radiologists’ 50% time. These examples do not mean that AI’s have started to replace radiologists. For now, AI’s are being kept at bay and only being used to help humans. But, maybe 15 years later, they will replace some doctors.
Nuclear Imaging
With an increasing number of patients requiring treatment of cancer and neurological conditions, the compound annual growth rate for the nuclear imaging market is expected at 10% in the next two years. PET and SPECT scans are nuclear imaging techniques are particularly helpful when diagnosing thyroid disease, gallbladder disease, heart conditions, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.
VR and 3D Images
Virtual Reality is doing outstandingly well in the gaming industry; it’s doing wonders in the entertainment industry as well. So, why shouldn’t it come to the medical diagnostic imaging technology, too? Sure enough, it already has and doing so much to help doctors. The images we get from different scans are all 2D and they require our doctors to use their imagination to make them together in a full picture.
Now, with the help of technologies like EchoPixel True 3D, doctors no longer need to do that. This technology has made it possible for doctors to take a part of any scan to examine them with their 3D glasses or VR headsets, and even print a 3D image to further examine it! Rest assured, in the near future, we will see more wonders from virtual reality.
Diagnostic Wearables
Wearables are cool and very trendy. And tech companies have made wearables make their way into the diagnostic imaging world, too. Two of the most common diagnostic wearables are MRI Gloves and Portable MEG Brain Scanners.
The MRI gloves are worn next to the skin and they provide very clear images of bones, tendons, and ligaments moving together. These gloves are integrated with garment-like detectors.
As one can guess from the name, MEG brain scanners are worn in the head like helmets and the scanner measures brain activity when people are doing their regular activities, like writing, shaking the head, walking, etc. This scanner can get improved images from the patients of epilepsy.
Summary
To summarize, the future for diagnostic medical imaging looks very bright and we can expect more wondrous inventions.
