End-users also are concerned about saving money on today’s high-end tubes, especially those locked-down by the OEMs’ suppliers as proprietary. These include Philips’ MRC for Brilliance, Toshiba’s Aquilion, Siemens’ Stratton, and GE’s Hercules.

“For many other types of newer tubes, the industry has yet to see a reliable secondhand source, and end-user facilities should consider this carefully when looking at their equipment options,” says Wayne Kramer, vice president of global parts operations for C&G Technologies, Inc.


Kramer advises end-users to seek-out equipment with the potential for solid third-party support, with the availability of after-market tubes.

Rick Stockton, president of Nationwide Medical Equipment Services, LLC, believes that you need competitive tubes to break the monopoly OEMs create on the introduction of new tube products.

Dunlee provides midlevel tubes in China and other global markets in what they call their value segment, and that has driven its tube business over the last year, but a big part of Dunlee’s tube market deals entails presenting alternative tubes to what the OEMs offer.

“We don’t just make tubes for Philips CTs, we make tubes for GE, Siemens and Toshiba, so we diversified our portfolio so we can serve the entire install base,” says Frick.

Image intensifiers hanging on
“With the service life being seven to 10 years and the equipment expected to function for up to 20 years, I see another lifecycle of image intensifiers available for sale through 2025,” Frick says. “It’s important when we talk about image intensifiers that hospitals realize that technology is still available.”

Image intensifiers still have some traction in very cost-sensitive X-ray applications, so their survival really depends on how quickly the flat detector manufacturers can hit a price point to displace all image intensifiers and minimize the additional cost for going digital.

“We predicted the demise of image intensifiers 20 years ago,” says Frick. “I think we still have the feeling that the evolution is inevitable but when that will happen is really quite unpredictable at the moment.”

Looking at both segments of the imaging industry, successful companies will be the ones continuing to maximize equipment life and provide lower cost solutions in replacing or installing X-ray tubes.

There will also be a replacement market for image intensifiers that continues for the next five to 10 years for existing systems in the overseas market, Frick says.

“Internationally, the image intensifier market is still growing,” Frick says. “We hear from all the image intensifier factories that their volumes have increased in the last couple of years and it’s due primarily to growth in the emerging markets.”

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