AuntMinnie.com CT Radiology Insider

Dear CT Insider,

As the use of conventional autopsy has declined, multidetector CT is increasingly taking on the grim but essential work of virtual autopsy.

The modality's speed, high resolution, and subtle grayscale are proving to be a good fit for the needs of coroners and forensic pathologists looking for the cause of death and other pathologies, particularly when conventional autopsy is inconclusive. When mass disaster strikes, CT is helping to identify the victims unambiguously.

This Insider launches a two-part series on CT in virtual autopsy, based on information from the European centers that pioneered the practice, and from the U.S. Department of Defense, which scans every U.S. soldier killed in battle. You'll find part I of our series here. Before moving on, you'll also want to check out our overview of virtual autopsy as used on all imaging modalities.

This month also concludes our series on automated detection of lung nodules with CT, in part II of the story launched last month.

Also of note, radiologists in Italy are restoring damaged vocal cords with fat from the patients' own bodies, and imaging the results with CT and MR. Meanwhile, on the business side, an imaging start-up in New York hopes to revolutionize breast imaging with a prototype conebeam CT scanner. You'll find more news on CT in the links below.