One need not look far to appreciate the dramatic difference in capability between the CT of yesterday and today. By comparison, today's multidetector units offer as much as an eight-fold increase in speed over single-slice systems. A lumbar CT study that might have taken 45 minutes 10 years ago can now be completed in less than 10 seconds.

CT's introduction sparked a new era in the way radiologists evaluate patients. Slices that cut through the body augmented 2D coronal images, common in both radiography and nuclear medicine. These slices offered immediate benefits, allowing multiple points to be recorded from different angles. A series of digitally stored slices could be reconstructed in multiple views.

CT quickly earned a niche as the primary technique for abdominal disorders and the mainstay of body and chest imaging. Its specialties included the study of cortical bone, examining fractures of the temporal bone and pelvis, and providing high-contrast spatial resolution in the upper abdomen. By the late 1980s, cine CT had emerged as a cost-effective way to evaluate cardiac structure, function, and re perfusion. Now our 16-slice CT unit delivers brilliant, color, 3-D imagery that we could have only dreamed of just a few years ago..