High imaging technology and health care expenditures

Health care expenditures constitute a large part of the gross domestic product of the industrialized world and are growing at an alarming rate in some countries, particularly in the United States. Although the expenditures of radiology represented only 3.5% of the total health-care bill in the United States in 1990, the high price of certain high-technology instruments, such as magnetic resonance imagers, attracts attention. Yet, high imaging technology properly used reduces the cost of health care as can be seen from many examples. High imaging technology is non-invasive and often replaces procedures that would require hospitalization. Ethical considerations, such as large expenditures during the last year of life and some inappropriate uses, presently counterbalance the savings that the use of high technology could otherwise offer. By controlling its proper uses, high imaging technology can be a very useful tool.