Cardiac computed tomography imaging: A history and some future possibilities

Cardiac computed tomography (CT) is a special subset of CT, a subject about which much has been written in terms of the underlying concepts and mathematics and the sociologic impact. Cardiac CT has passed through three, chronologically overlapping, developmental stages and is now in its fourth stage of development. The first stage was fluoroscopy-based CT (1972-1995) stimulated by physiologic research needs, and the next was clinical CT-based exploration (1975-1980) of the potential of clinical CT in cardiology. This was followed by the electron beam CT-based stage (1980-present), which was the first CT approach applicable to clinical cardiology. Finally, volume-scanning CT imaging methods achieved with multislice scanning approaches of helical CT and by flat panel-based CT (1990-present), show great promise for clinically applicable CT of the cardiovascular system.