Milestones in Medical Imaging

1895
German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen produced the first X-ray picture of the body.

1900
The chest X-ray aided early detection of tuberculosis.

1906
X-ray contrast medium developed.

1924
Radiographic imaging of the gallbladder, bile duct, and blood vessels conducted.

1945
Coronary artery imaging enabled.

1950
Nuclear medicine applied to imaging the kidneys, heart, and skeletal system.

1955
X-ray image intensifier units provided dynamic imaging of a beating heart and its blood vessels.

Panoramic X-ray images taken of the entire jaw and teeth.

1960
Ultrasound imaging developed.

1970
X-ray mammography used for imaging the breasts.

1972
Computed Tomography (CT) scanning invented by Allan Cormack, a professor of physics at Tufts University, and Godfrey Hounsfield, a British engineer. Cormack and Hounsfield received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their efforts.

1978
Digital radiography developed.

1980
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) developed by Paul Lauterbur, professor of chemistry, biophysics, computational biology, and engineering, and Sir Peter Mansfield, professor of physics at the University of Nottingham. In 2003 Lauterbur and Mansfield received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work.

1984
Three-dimensional image processing using digital computers and CT or MR data first conducted.

1985
Clinical Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning developed by scientists at the University of California.

1989
Spiral CT allows fast-volume scanning of an entire organ in 30 seconds.

1993
Echo Planar MR Imaging (EPI) developed.

Open MRI Systems designed, allowing MR scanning of severely claustrophobic or obese patients who could not tolerate conventional MR imaging in a closed system.

— Imaginis Corporation