(Ivanhoe Newswire) – According to new research imaging is now the fastest growing expense for Medicare and has surpassed overall cancer care costs.

Researchers at Duke University examined the use and costs of eight different imaging devices among 100,000 cancer patients between 1999 and 2006. They found that overall 2-year costs per patient increased annually at a rate of 2 to 5 percent while the cost of imaging rose between 5 and 10 percent per patient.

“Patients are undergoing more imaging studies,” Michaela Dinan, lead author of the study was quoted as saying. “As newer, more expensive imaging technologies are used more frequently, the overall cost of the imaging is going to increase.”

According to the findings, PET (positron emission tomography) scans grew the fastest and are six times as expensive as computed tomography, also called CAT scans, which create cross-sectional images of structures in the body.