Posted on: 24/04/2024

Medical imaging today.

About the inventions of current forms of medical imaging. The basis for the invention of CT scans began with the concept of "tomography" that emerged in the early 1900s. Computed tomography (CT) is a technique that takes multiple X-ray images from different angles to create a more comprehensive picture of internal structures. CTs offered detailed cross-sectional views of the body. British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield is credited with developing the first CT scanner. In 1971, Hounsfield developed an innovative design that included an x-ray source that rotated around the patient and a computer to reconstruct the data into detailed cross-sectional images. This laid the foundation for CT scans. On October 1, 1971, the first CT scan was performed on a living patient at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in London. The innovations and contributions of many researchers and engineers were instrumental in shaping modern MRI scanning technology. American physician and inventor Raymond Damadian's invention marked an important milestone in MRI scanning. The basic ideas of MRI can be traced back to the work of physicists Felix Bloch and Wolfgang Pauli. They discovered the basic principle of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that underlies how MRI scanners work. In 1977 Raymond Damadian built the first NMR scanner "Indomitable". Damadian observed the different relaxation times of cell nuclei in healthy and cancerous tissues using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He realized that this difference could be used to distinguish between the two. Based on this observation, Damadian proposed the idea of an MRI scanner in 1969. This marked a significant leap forward in envisioning how NMR could be applied to medical imaging. In 1980, he founded FONAR Corporation, which built the first commercial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, a medical imaging technique that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves and a computer for making detailed pictures of organs, soft tissues, bones, and other internal structures of the body. Unlike X-rays and CT scans, MRI scans do not use ionizing radiation. Traditional X-rays are still widely used, but new advances such as cone-beam CT and digital fluoroscopy offer better image quality and lower radiation doses. Nuclear medicine studies using radioactive material to assess organ function and blood flow began as early as the 1950s. Today's PET scans, in which a radioactive tracer is injected into the body and the emissions are then detected using a special scanner. It helps assess the function of organs and tissues, and can be used to diagnose cancer, heart disease, and other conditions. The SPECT scans are similar to PET scans, but use different types of radioactive tracers. They are often used to depict specific organs such as the heart, brain, and bones.