Growth Opportunities in Precision Medical Imaging, Forecast to 2022

The precision medicine paradigm has found its early roots in genetic profiling, as genomics have proven their potential in helping clinicians decide on the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. Not far behind is medical imaging, which is rapidly developing its own, image-based approaches to tailoring decisions and care pathways to individual patients. Indeed, as one of only four ways to phenotype a patient, – together with clinical history through physical examination, lab testing, and pathology – diagnostic imaging provides a fundamental source of information for personalized medicine. At every step of the medical imaging value chain, opportunities are developing for a personalized approach to imaging, away from a one-size fits-all model: from ordering and planning imaging studies, to imaging equipment advances and personalized image acquisitions, to precision reporting and image analysis with quantitative imaging biomarkers and radiomics, to image-based 3D printing and real-time image-guided interventions and therapies, to high-precision radiation therapy and molecular imaging of theranostic radiotracers, and with the overarching analytics layer that closed the loop on imaging's value, quality and outcomes. Precision imaging’s impact is expected across the key clinical application areas of oncology, metabolic diseases and neurological disorders, and the paradigm itself is expected to result from the convergence of several developments, including but not limited to integrated and structured big imaging datasets, multi-modal techniques in multidisciplinary care, and personalization under a consumerist paradigm.

Every major economy has launched wide-scale precision medicine projects over the last few years, involving genetic profiling of millions of people. Medical imaging is now the next in line, as the interest in imaging biobanks and registries and the confidence in image-based cohort creation and therapy selection and planning are growing rapidly. While all of the major imaging companies have taken notice of the "precision imaging" opportunity, their respective approaches and proactive levels vary widely. Read Less