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Imaging3 competes in the medical diagnostic imaging market and this market has never been healthier than it is today. This vitality is due primarily to continual technological improvements that lead to faster and better-resolution imaging, greater patient safety, and the provision of these capabilities to a growing population. The result has been a vigorous competition to create the most cost-effective diagnostic imaging systems.
 According to a Freedonia Group study, the medical imaging equipment market in the US will register gains of 7.6 percent per year through 2008 to $9.5 billion, faster than projected growth in national health expenditures. Growth will be stimulated by an increasing incidence of patient procedures involving diagnostic imaging, partly the result of an aging population and partly reflecting advances in noninvasive imaging technology.
Diagnostic imaging is an evolving part of modern medicine and is now entering a new era of digital imaging. The field has evolved from the early X-rays by Roentgen over 100 years ago to imaging of organs by computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that are 20 years old. Medical imaging is used for diagnosis in the leading causes of death, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. What was once called the radiology department is now called the diagnostic imaging department because of the wealth of new technologies available beyond x-rays. A trauma victim's internal injuries are imaged with a CT scanner. Breast cancer, a leading cause of death in women, is detected with mammography and ultrasound.
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