Single-slice CT scanners for routine clinical use were around for nine years before being replaced by the next generation—4-slice CT. They lasted 5 years, before 16 and 32-slice machines appeared. Eighteen months later, the 64-slice made its debut, and within nine months a 256-slicer was up and running in Japan. Where do we go […]

Evidence that technology erodes the deep-pocket advantage of academic hospitals as it becomes more powerful and less expensive can be seen in the development of an echocardiography alternative to nuclear stress tests, and the possibility that community hospitals that already own separate SPECT and CT scanners may not need to invest in an expensive combination […]

The falling cost and growing benefits of digital x-ray systems threaten the radiology Establishment but promise better and more affordable healthcare. Even bigger threats to the Establishment lurk in the wings: Imagine being able to scan a patient’s interior just by looking through him or her. A way has been found to do just that, […]

The cup of brain imaging may be half full or half empty. But it is certainly not getting any emptier: Functional MRI (fMRI) has advanced our understanding of the emotional and behavioral changes in women during the menstrual cycle, by mapping the brain’s activity; and a new scanner that can see nanoscale objects in materials […]

While nuclear and other exotic methods produce increasingly sharp and detailed images of the insides of our bodies, optical imaging can also play in that space. A fiber-optic scope and image enhancement software provides “surprisingly clear” pictures of tissue or bone damage with a minimum of pain and trauma. Optics are also producing increasingly sharp […]