The Most Expensive Scans You Can Get

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Type	Cost (USD)	Main Uses	Approx. Annual U.S. Volume
X-ray	30 – 200	Fractures, chest/lung, dental, routine screening	Hundreds of millions
Calcium CT (CAC scan)	100 – 400	Coronary artery calcium scoring, heart disease risk	Few million (subset of CTs)
CT	300 – 3,000	Trauma, head, chest, abdomen, vascular, cancer staging	~80 million
MRI	400 – 3,500	Brain, spine, joints, organs, tumors	~40 million
PET / PET-CT	1,500 – 4,600	Cancer detection & monitoring, brain, heart	~2 million

Why is the PET scan so expensive?

1. Radioactive tracer production – PET requires short-lived radiopharmaceuticals that must often be made in a nearby cyclotron and transported quickly.

2. Special equipment and staffing – PET scanners are often combined with CT (PET/CT) and require nuclear medicine specialists.

3. Less common – Fewer centers have PET machines compared to MRI, so supply and access drive up costs.

A physicist, a radiologist, and a philosopher walk into a lab.
The physicist says, “The PET scan is remarkable—it reveals metabolic activity at the molecular level.”
The radiologist nods, “Yes, but only if you interpret the images correctly.”
The philosopher sips their coffee and replies,
“So, it’s essentially a $5,000 existential question: is the brain lighting up because it’s thinking… or because it’s worrying about the bill?”