Computed Tomography

A computed tomography scan, formerly called a CAT scan, is a medical imaging method that produces detailed cross-sectional images of the body by rotating an X-ray tube and a row of detectors around the patient inside a gantry and measuring how different tissues attenuate the X-rays. The electrical engineer Godfrey Hounsfield and the physicist Allan MacLeod Cormack independently developed the mathematics and engineering behind computer-assisted tomographic imaging in the 1970s, and their work was recognized with the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded jointly to the two men for the development of computer-assisted tomography. CT scanning has since become one of the most widely used tools in medical diagnosis, valued for producing detailed internal images far faster than earlier X-ray methods.