Computed Tomography: A Historical Perspective

Over the past decade, Computed Tomography has undergone a rapid development. Since CT is so practical and useful, undoubtedly CT technology will continue advancing biomedical and non-biomedical applications. During its more than 30-years history, the CT has made great improvements in speed, patient comfort, and resolution. The first CT scanner developed by Hounsfield took several hours to acquire the raw data for a single scan or "slice" and took days to reconstruct a single image from this raw data. Later the speed of these conventional scanners improved a lot. This article reviews the history and evolution of CT generations with advantages and disadvantages of each generation.