Providers turn to mobile PET/CT scanners as demand grows

Modern Healthcare – Thursday, November 20, 2025
By Lauren Dubinsky

Small hospitals and clinics are turning to mobile PET/CT scanner rental companies so they can offer advanced imaging to patients without the steep investment of owning the equipment.

Mobile equipment rental is expanding most rapidly in cardiac imaging, as providers look to replace older technology and care for more patients with heart disease. A recent innovation in the space, an injectable radioactive imaging agent for cardiovascular scans that has a longer lifespan, is creating opportunities to bring the mobile scanning technology to more providers and communities.

The PET/CT scanner market in the U.S. was valued at about $864 million in 2023 and is expected to reach $1.4 billion in 2032, according to market research company Global Market Insights.

Increased demand for the diagnostic testing is driven by the rising prevalence of diseases such as cancer along with cardiovascular and neurological disorders. PET/CT scans allows clinicians to detect disease, stage it precisely and monitor how well treatment is working.

The drawback is the scanners are expensive to purchase — ranging from $225,000 to more than $5 million, not including costs related to building or renovating a space to house the scanner. Typical monthly costs to rent a mobile PET/CT scanner is in the low- to mid-$30,000 range.

Some rental companies are seeing growth in the cardiac PET/CT space as hospitals seek access to newer technology, while others are entering the market because the new imaging agent makes the diagnostic testing easier and more affordable to offer.

Shared Imaging offers rentals of multiple types of imaging scanners from companies such as GE HealthCare and Siemens Healthineers. About 30% of its customers rent a mobile PET/CT scanner, and that percentage is growing by 12% to 15% per year, said Larry Siebs, Shared Imaging’s president and CEO.

The scanner is housed inside a trailer and can either be stationed at a facility or driven to serve multiple locations along a route.
New radiopharmaceutical changing the game

To perform a cardiac PET/CT imaging test, the imaging agent Rubidium is needed. It must be produced onsite in an expensive generator because it has a short half-life, which is the time it takes for half of the radioactive atoms in a sample to decay.

GE HealthCare changed the game when it announced Food and Drug Administration approval for Flyrcado in September 2024. Flyrcado has a longer half-life, so the trailers can pull up to the hospital with doses ready to administer.

Flyrcado’s commercialization made cardiac PET/CT scans more of an option for rural hospitals and imaging clinics because rental companies see increased opportunities.

“A lot of the mobile providers have been gearing up for that, buying cardiac PET systems [and] locking up those routes out across the U.S.,” said Larry Biscotti, president of imaging for U.S. and Canada at GE HealthCare.

In late October, two Mercy Health hospitals in Ohio became the first to use Flyrcado in a mobile unit, working with Associates in Medical Imaging. The unit is parked at the two rural hospitals one day per week for cardiac PET/CT imaging.

“One of the big things that we really tried to put our arms around was trying to service communities that otherwise weren’t able to get these types of services,” said Michael Rotunno, co-owner of Associates in Medical Imaging.

Dr. John Luellen, state president of Ohio for Mercy Health, said the decision to introduce cardiac PET/CT in Ohio was driven by a need for more advanced and reliable imaging technology across the region. The newer technology allows for more accurate and efficient diagnostics and the mobile approach means hospitals can optimize resources based on patient needs and volumes, improve productivity and ensure better use of clinical assets, he said.

Some rental companies will continue to offer Rubidium along with Flyrcado.

“If you have high volumes, you’re probably going to find Rubidium to be attractive because Rubidium [involves] a generator that just sits right there next to your camera,” said Brendon Loiselle, chief business development officer at CDL Nuclear Technologies. “You push a button and a dose comes out.”
Growing demand for oncology imaging

Mobile PET/CT for oncology is also on the rise, benefiting patients by bringing the testing closer to them, helping hospitals retain patients and leading to increased sales of the units by manufacturers like Siemens Healthineers North America and GE HealthCare.

VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital in South Hill, Virginia, rents a mobile PET/CT scanner that travels to two other facilities within the health system throughout the week.

The hospital does not have the patient volume to support purchase of a scanner. The mobile unit sees about nine patients a day.

“If patients required a PET/CT [scan] in the past, then we would have to refer them to a larger area that had the service,” said Brenda Palmore, vice president of operations. “They would have to travel out of the area and [there were] probably longer wait times as well to get in.”

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