Celebrating 50 years of CT Imaging
Celebrating 50 years of CT Imaging
October 1st, 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the first computed tomography (CT) scan, which was performed in 1971 by radiologist James Ambrose at Atkinson Morley's Hospital in London, UK. Considered by physicians as the most significant medical advance of the 20th century, CT scans are used today to diagnose and guide the treatment of more than 90 million Americans each year.
Much has been written about CT’s inventors, particularly Sir Godfrey Hounsfield. A radar operator in World War II who went on to work for Electric and Musical Industries (EMI), where he developed the UK’s first commercially available all-transistor computer. Fascinated with pattern recognition from his days working with radar, he hypothesized that he could calculate a representation of the inside of an object if he has enough transmission measurements going through the object – and in 1967 he set out to build a device to do just that.
Unbeknownst to Hounsfield, Dr. Allan Cormack, a particle physicist with a side interest in x-ray imaging, had described the theoretical principles behind Hounsfield’s hypothesis in a paper published in 1963. The two shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of computer assisted tomography."
A new gallery in the American Association of Medical Physics’ Virtual Museum - launched this week to coincide with CT’s 50th anniversary - takes the viewer on a journey from 1963 to the present day, describing the pioneering work of CT’s inventors and the technology breakthroughs that have continued to transform the field.
I hope that you will take a moment to explore the history of CT and to appreciate Hounsfield, Cormack, and so many innovators since then. In fact just today, the FDA announced its 510k clearance of the first commercially available photon counting CT scanner. As has happened with the introduction of every technical advance in CT – body CT, electron-beam, spiral CT, multi-detector-row CT, wide-coverage CT, dual-source CT, and dual-energy CT – the quality of CT images will further improve, new applications will emerge, and the medical benefit will grow.
Happy 50th anniversary to computer-assisted tomography! For a half-century, patients have benefited from your depiction of human anatomy, pathology, and injury. And, thank you to the many pioneers who have made CT what it is today, especially Sir Godfrey.