PROCEDURE

Figure 1: Patient in CT Imaging System

(A motorized table moves the patient (Figure 1) through a circular opening in the CT imaging system)

  

1. A motorized table moves the patient through a circular opening in the CT imaging system.
2. While the patient is inside the opening of the CT imaging system, an x-ray source and detector within the housing rotate around the patient. A single rotation takes about 1 second. The x-ray source produces a narrow, fan-shaped beam of x-rays that passes through a section of the patient's body.
3. A detector opposite from the x-ray source records the x-rays passing through the patient's body as a "snapshot" image. Many different "snapshots" (at many angles through the patient) are collected during one complete rotation.
4. For each rotation of the x-ray source and detector, the image data are sent to a computer to reconstruct all of the individual "snapshots" into one or multiple cross-sectional images (slices) of the internal organs and tissues.