The same week that British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix pledged $11 million to expand MRI usage across the Canadian province, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) released its medical imaging inventory report for 2017, noting a 65 percent increase in MRI units in the past decade.
Though British Columbia’s MRI count isn’t the highest in the country—both Ontario and Quebec topped the province—it’s still better than areas like Alberta. Yukon, despite its square mileage, houses just one MRI machine, at Whitehorse General Hospital.
In all, MRI units in Canada jumped from 222 scanners in 2007 to 366 in 2017, CADTH reported. All provinces and one territory had at least one unit.
“When the number of MRI units per population for Canada is compared with other countries that report MRI units to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada appears in the lower half of the reported numbers,” CADTH officials wrote. “For the number of exams per population, Canada appears around the midpoint.”
Dix’s pledge could contribute to an already growing occurrence of MRIs in Canada—his projected 20 percent hike in exam rates will raise the overall number of scans performed in the country annually, which totaled 1.86 million in the most recent fiscal year. That’s up from around one million exams in 2007, CADTH said. Dix’s funds should add 37,000 tests in the next year.
Most of Canada’s MRI machines are 1.5 Tesla, according to the report, and the majority are on the newer side. While 36 percent are five years old or less, just 26 percent were more than 10 years old and none were greater than 20 years old.
CADTH’s imaging inventory report also includes statistics for CTs, which are up 34 percent from 2007, SPECT exams and PET imaging. Find the full report here.
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.