From the November 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


From a fluoroscopic perspective, the company introduced the D-250RF at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in 2010. The product, whose official name is in the process of being finalized, is a dynamic radiographic system that uses an RF panel and has a fixed, integrated table.


Sales in the sector

Philips’ Lobree reports that the company’s sales have been very good over the past year. He has noticed that more customers in the United States seem to be interested in replacing several radiographic and fluoroscopic products simultaneously.

“I think customers have gotten more savvy and realize that they have more purchasing power if they buy multiple pieces of equipment at once,” he says.
“This has been a great year for us, we really picked up after the 2008 recession,” says Frank Serrao, marketing manager of Shimadzu Medical Systems USA.

He feels the growth has been due to a combination of newer technology and the need for facilities to replace equipment. Similarly, GE’s Widmann mentions that sales have been “very robust,” and Canon’s Geyzer says that his company has had a “banner year” thanks to the introduction of their new products.

For Toshiba, sales over the past year have been a bit slow. “We are seeing a lot of hospitals are hanging onto their RF system, like a Kalare, and they’re just waiting for it to die,” says Ybarra.

“Overall we see that the market seems to be quite stable,” observes Niepel. Referring to radiographic and fluoroscopic equipment, he says, “everyone needs it, everyone has it and it continues to be a replacement market.”

According to Leon Gugel, president of Metropolis International, a vendor of used and refurbished diagnostic imaging equipment, sales have been improving over the past year.

“It’s a cycle where every three, four years there’s a lot of straight rad rooms on the market that are sold,” he says.

He went on to note that approximately 60 percent of Metropolis’ radiography and fluoroscopy business is international, and that most of his customers are from smaller, rural hospitals located in developing countries.

Major trends
One of the biggest trends in the sector has been the growing demand for digital products. “Customers see the value of digital,” says Widmann. “The trend is not only to go to full direct digital across the product line . . . but to also leverage the digital image for other workflow and clinical enhancements.”

Widmann estimates that nearly half of the radiography and fluoroscopy market has gone digital.

“Certainly today the request for digital equipment far out pays—in terms of tender—that of any analog equipment,” he says, emphasizing the fact that the complete transition to digital will be a gradual process. “Radiology is a piece of equipment that is held on to for 10, 15, sometimes 20 years, so customers make that investment in a very determined manner and it will take a long time for the market to fully convert.”

November 2011 Magazine

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