OCT market to hit $800 million by 2012

By 2012 the market for optical coherence tomography (OCT) is predicted to hit the $800 million mark, according to a recent market research report.

The report, "Optical Coherence Tomography - Technology, markets and applications: 2008-2021", from the publishers of BioOptics World quantifies this rapidly growing market for the first time. Currently the global market for OCT systems is around $200 million and is growing at an annual rate of 34%.

It is expected that the first commercial application of OCT, ophthalmology, will remain the dominant application until 2012, however, new applications and products are beginning to emerge in cardiology, dentistry, cancer detection, glucose monitoring and dermatology. In particular, commercial activity for OCT in intravascular imaging has been gaining momentum over the past 12 months.

Much of this recent activity in the market is being driven by a shift from time-domain to Fourier-domain OCT. While similar, Fourier-domain systems offer twice the resolution and 50 to 100 times the image-acquisition speed. Furthermore, because the Fourier-domain technique is not protected under tightly held patents, more companies are able to develop or market products using the technology.