In the U.S. alone, annual CT scans now top 90 million — a nearly one-third increase since the mid-2000s. Driving the surge, experts say, is growing demand for emergency, cardiac, and oncology services, along with an aging population.

The trend shows no signs of slowing: a recent Coherent Market Insights report projects the CT market will expand from $9.15 billion in 2025 to $14.03 billion by 2032.

That growth is pushing manufacturers to accelerate innovation, from photon-counting detectors and AI-assisted reconstruction to faster scanners designed to reduce motion artifacts. But expansion also raises practical questions. Who will maintain the growing fleet of scanners amid healthcare technology management (HTM) staffing shortages and rising service costs? And will the rising cost of CT ownership leave smaller facilities behind?
Dan Xu, business leader for CT/AMI at Philips, argues that these pressures are actually fueling adoption. “Health systems are prioritizing CT as a frontline diagnostic tool because they need fast, confident answers, especially in high-volume settings with clinician shortages,” Xu told HCB News.

Executives at GE HealthCare, Siemens Healthineers, and Canon Medical are witnessing similar trends.

CT’s expanding role across care
CT remains central to diagnosing ovarian, pancreatic, kidney, and lung cancers. It’s also a staple in the emergency department, says Matthew Dedman, vice president and head of CT at Siemens Healthineers North America. “CT is mission-critical in hospitals; you can’t operate an ED or provide inpatient care without it,” he adds.

CT is also becoming critical to cardiology, driven in part by 2021 American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (AHA/ACC) guidelines that elevated CT to a level-one test for patients with stable and acute chest pain. Dedman says the shift “opened the floodgates” for cardiac CT services and led many health systems to rethink their CT deployment strategies.

“We’re seeing a move toward advanced, cardiac-capable scanners that can handle rising patient volumes and expand cardiac services across multiple sites,” he adds. Once mostly confined to the hospital, cardiac CT is now moving into outpatient imaging centers and freestanding facilities. That expansion — both in where CT is offered and how it’s used — has become a major driver of demand for high-end scanners, Dedman notes.

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