computed tomography

computed tomography (CT), diagnostic imaging method using a low-dose beam of X-rays that crosses the body in a single plane at many different angles.

CT was conceived by William Oldendorf and developed independently by Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield and Allan MacLeod Cormack, who shared a 1979 Nobel Prize for their inventions. A major advance in imaging technology, it became generally available in the early 1970s. The technique uses a tiny X-ray beam that traverses the body in an axial plane. Detectors record the strength of the exiting X-rays, and that information is then processed by computer to produce a detailed two-dimensional cross-sectional image of the body. A series of such images in parallel planes or around an axis can show the location of abnormalities and other space-occupying lesions (especially tumours and other masses) more precisely than can conventional X-ray images.

CT is the preferred examination for evaluating stroke, particularly subarachnoid hemorrhage, as well as abdominal tumours and abscesses.