by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | November 23, 2011
From the November 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The average age of our population continues to increase and we therefore need to do even more research to prevent and treat some of the devastating diseases that become more common as we age. The additional threat to funding of the NIH and Medicare IME funding could have a very negative effect on our academic medical centers. Today, the average life expectancy is 78 years and is much higher than the 60 years when Social Security was first implemented. The long term annual cost of caring for just Alzheimer's patients in 30 years could be up to a trillion dollars. Research into improved prevention and innovative therapies is our only hope for bending this cost curve.
DMBN: Do you anticipate any major developments in the sector in the near future?
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Drayer: The spatial, contrast, and temporal resolution of MRI continues to improve and hybrid units combining high resolution technologies will continue to increase. A redefining of diseases will occur related to a combined effort among scientists in genetics, molecular pathology, and imaging. New developments in contrast media and radiopharmaceuticals will continue with the development of even more useful biomarkers. Lower dose CT, X-Ray and angiographic equipment will be used and image guided interventional therapies will increasingly dominate. Finally, we will increasingly be improving local and distant access to patient images and these new image sharing techniques will hopefully contribute to patient dose reduction and cost reduction by obviating the need for unnecessary, repeat imaging studies.
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