Waiting times for an MRI, essential in the detection and monitoring of cancers, are still stagnating around one month nationally. And regional inequalities are widening.
When Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is like an obstacle course. The waiting times for this examination, essential in particular in the detection and monitoring of cancers, are still stagnating around one month at the national level.
According to investigation (1) published this Wednesday by the association Imagerie Santé Avenir (ISA), which represents the imaging industry, this year, the average waiting time is 30.3 days. It’s like in 2012-2013.
However, the 2015 result appears less bad than that of 2014 (37.7 days), the worst year for eleven years.
Far from the objectives of the Cancer Plan
But despite this slight improvement, many experts agree that we are still far from the objectives of the 2014-2019 Cancer Plan, which sets this average time at 20 days. This plan was however less ambitious than the previous Cancer Plan, which had set the limit at 15 days, and 10 days in regions at high risk of cancer mortality.
And precisely, from one region to another, the gaps remain and are widening. Only one, Ile-de-France, sees its deadlines drop below 20 days to obtain an appointment.
On the other hand, the delays are on the rise in the Poitou-Charentes region, going from 28.6 days in 2013 to 38.9 days in 2015. Same observation in Brittany, where they went in two years from 24.2 to 57.1 days. Worse still, Alsace, which, like Brittany, is one of the regions most affected by cancer, has also seen its delays increase with more than 61 days of waiting on average.
Source: Cemka Eval
The forgotten Pays de la Loire
In the end, five regions alone account for half of the new installations deployed in 2014 (Basse-Normandie, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, PACA, Midi-Pyrénées, Ile-de-France).
Conversely, in the same period, there was no equipment effort in four regions (Auvergne, Center, Franche-Comté and Languedoc-Roussillon), according to the report. Pays de la Loire is stagnant, with the lowest equipment rate in France (8.1 MRI per million inhabitants) and a waiting period of 55.8 days.
France, a bad student in Europe
With these figures, France therefore lags behind the European average, with only 11.9 devices per million inhabitants against 20 on average in Europe, according to the latest known figures (2014). A delay that has existed for years, recalls the ISA association.
Source: Cemka Eval
Rather than acting in spurts and insufficiently, “the effort should be continuous with a 5-year objective, for example to reach 17-18 machines per million inhabitants and that we stick to it. », Estimates Professor Jean-Yves Gauvrit, specialist in imaging of emergencies in neuroradiology (CHU Rennes) contacted by Agence France Presse (AFP).
(1) The survey, carried out every year since 2003, tested the responses to a request for an “emergency” lumbar examination by MRI as part of a cancer extension search.
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