The U.S. ultrasound equipment market will produce stable and reliable growth over the next few years and pass $2 billion in revenues by 2020, according to a new report by market research firm iData Research.
While market stability is realized from cardiology and radiology ultrasound equipment sales that make up more than half of the overall U.S. ultrasound equipment market, the sector is being driven by new technologies, iData said. New radiation-free needle placement procedures will spark significant future growth in point-of-care ultrasound devices, for example, according to the company. The number of ultrasound procedures being performed by anesthesiologists more than doubled between 2010 and 2013.
In ultrasound market trends, iData found that radiology departments are increasingly buying smaller, specialized ultrasound systems instead of the expensive general imaging ultrasound scanners they have usually used. Radiology ultrasound equipment sales are also limited by the increasing number of hospital departments performing their own ultrasound exams instead of sending patients to radiology, iData said.
Anesthesiology and musculoskeletal point-of-care ultrasound equipment sales are also on the rise, as physicians are increasingly using ultrasound to improve the accuracy of needle placement procedures and replace costly radiation-based imaging techniques with real-time, cost-effective ultrasound imaging, iData said.
