REPORT: COMPUTER-AIDED SURGERY GROWING RAPIDLY

The global market for computer-aided surgery has risen to approximately $465 million annually, and is growing rapidly, a recent report finds.

According to a report by MedMarket Diligence, as new companies enter this arena, the annual growth of the market will double by 2009. The report, "U.S. Market for Virtual Reality in Surgery and Imaging, 2004-2009," finds that the annual growth rate for this market will jump from 10 percent in 2005 to 20 percent in 2009. The U.S. computer-aided surgery market was an estimated $296 million in 2004.

"The use of virtual reality or, more mundanely, 'computer-aided surgery' systems found initial success in making accessible to the clinician organs, systems and especially pathology that was previously inaccessible, such as in neurosurgery," says Patrick Driscoll, president of MedMarket Diligence. "But growth in computer-aided surgery is now going well beyond radiosurgery or Gamma-Knife-type applications. Cost effective, standard practices in orthopedics, otolaryngology, cardiac, and spinal surgery [will be] driving the market for these technologies in excess of 20 percent by 2009."

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