X-ray computed tomography

X-ray computed tomography (CT), introduced into clinical practice in 1972, was the first of the modern slice-imaging modalities. To reconstruct images mathematically from measured data and to display and to archive them in digital form was a novelty then and is commonplace today. CT has shown a steady upward trend with respect to technology, performance and clinical use independent of predictions and expert assessments which forecast in the 1980s that it would be completely replaced by magnetic resonance imaging. CT not only survived but exhibited a true renaissance due to the introduction of spiral scanning which meant the transition from slice-by-slice imaging to true volume imaging. Complemented by the…