MRI devices' sales booming

MRI Devices' Sales Booming

Worldwide sales of magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) devices--diagnostic tools that use magnetic fields and radio waves to take "pictures' of internal tissues and organs--will grow from virtually nothing before 1983 to about $1.2 billion in 1990, according to a report by the market research firm of Frost & Sullivan, Inc., New York, N.Y.

The first MRI marketing approvals were granted bythe Food and Drug Administration in March 1984 for the general purpose of producing images of the internal structure of the head or body, without any particular claim of diagnostic usefulness. The report says that those approvals and proof of MRI's efficacy "have since boosted the number of MRI procedures exponentially, and the demand for machines is following.' In 1985, 315 MRI units were shipped worldwide. More than 400 units were shipped in 1986, and Frost & Sullivan predicts about 820 will be shipped annually by 1990. The majority of the units that have been and will be sold will go to the United States.

For more information on MRI (also known as NMR,for nuclear magnetic resonance), see "NMR Offers a Better Focus on What's Inside Us' in the September 1984 FDA Consumer.

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