Mammography has been the gold standard for breast cancer screening ever since it was proven to reduce mortality in clinical trials in the 1960s. A 2015 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed, however, that only 66.8 percent of women age 40 and over — the demographic traditionally targeted for screening — had received a mammogram in the previous two years.1 Understanding of fibroglandular breast density and its impact on cancer detection, as well as new screening guidelines that challenge conventional wisdom, are among the factors impacting compliance rates, and they suggest that screening has evolved beyond the one-size-fits-all approach of using mammography alone.

Healthcare spending is on the rise. According to a 2014 forecast by FMI, a market research group, total global healthcare spending will reach $52 billion by 2018 — less than two years away. Further research shows that nearly half of the money (40 percent) will be spent on equipment, an encompassing term that includes everything from beds to gurneys to imaging equipment. Radiology actually makes up the lion’s share of equipment costs, accounting for approximately 1/5 (depending on the type of facility) of total equipment expenditures, per a 2015 report from market research firm Medical Architecture Planning Systems. At the same time, it is also a major revenue driver for hospitals, with radiology expected to account for $49 billion of total global medical imaging revenue by 2020, according to BCC Research, a market research company.

Science fiction offers a lot of ideas for creating new body parts on demand, and the advancement of 3-D printing (also called additive manufacturing) is slowly translating this idea into science fact. Today, the 3-D printed anatomic models created from patient computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or 3-D ultrasound imaging datasets are used for education and to plan and navigate difficult procedures. These models are used to teach about complex or rare cardiac or congenital conditions that up until recently could only be seen using examples extracted from cadavers. Anatomical models of rare cardiac anatomy can be printed on-demand from CT scans of surviving patients.