Imaging industry seeks more coverage for cancer scans

BALTIMORE (Reuters) – Calls for Medicare government health plans to include coverage for PET scans to additional cancer types have been made.  The medical imaging industry has asked an advisory panel to recommend wider payments.

Data has shown that positron emission tomography (PET) scans went a long way in giving doctors accurate information and allowed them to alter their treatment plans for nearly one-third of their enrolled patients.  The way PET scans work is that radioactive sugars are injected into the body which then travel to the metabolically active parts of the body and can indicate cancer risk.  What the CT or MRI scans miss, the PET scans could pick up due to the unique method of locating possible cancer cells.

“This is a broadly applicable technique to cancers in general,” Dr. David Mankoff, a University of Washington radiologist, said on behalf of several industry associations

Representatives of the Academy of Molecular Imaging had requested that Medicare lift restriction on payments for nine cancers:  brain, cervical, bladder, small-cell lung, ovarian, testicular, prostrate, kidney and pancreatic.

Medicare covers over 44 million American and said it would cover the nine cancers if patients were enrolled in the registry.  Currently there are around 2 million PET scans given in the United States per year.  Eliminating the registration requirement would increase the use of these scans.  Companies that make PET scanners like General Electric and Philips would see a big boost in their sales.

However before making changes to Medicare policies, the drawback of PET scans such as its frequent false positives need to be tackled.

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