IMV Study: Radiation oncology going digital

Radiation oncology sites in the U.S. are on the move with electronically networked system for planning treatments, but also to guide the treatment of tumors real-time, so says a recent study published by IMV Medical Information Division.

"Radiation oncology sites are steadily increasing their usage of electronic networks to send and receive digital images used in treatment planning," said Lorna Young, Senior Director, Market Research, IMV, in report summary.  "While in 1998, twenty-four percent of the radiation oncology sites used electronic networks, 86 percent of the sites now use networks for sharing images used in treatment planning.  Meanwhile the use of x-ray film to transfer images to radiation oncology has dropped from 87 percent to 33 percent of the sites over the same period," she added. 

IMV's 2004 Radiation Oncology Census Database is a tool that can be used by vendors to focus marketing and sales efforts, IMV said.

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