Dear CT Insider,
These are exciting times for CT technology, which by some accounts has seen more progress in the past year than in the decade before it.
It's hard to argue with such conclusions. For practices that can afford the best, today's market offers the anatomic and functional marriage of multislice 3D PET/CT, the heart-stopping power of dual-source CT, and the speedy resolution of 64-slice scanners.
Now comes 256-slice CT, in a prototype machine that promises to up the ante even further -- and perhaps overload some PACS networks to the breaking point.
Dr. Kazuhiro Katada from the Fujita Health University School of Medicine in Tokyo talks about the 256-detector Toshiba scanner he's been working with since January. Find out about the protocols, see high-resolution CT angiography of the head, and watch the video of a beating heart imaged in a single gantry rotation, all in today's Insider Exclusive story.
In other news in our CT Digital Community, you won't want to miss the compelling tale of U.S. military doctors who are scanning every military casualty from Iraq to Afghanistan. The final installment of our series on CT in virtual autopsy takes you to a high-volume mortuary and forensics lab in Dover, DE, where investigations must be completed and bodies scanned within 24 hours, no matter what condition they arrive in.
Last but not least, radiologist Dr. Ann Leung from Stanford University offers tips on lung nodule management with MDCT -- and talks about how published guidelines are only the start of decision-making. I invite you to scroll down for dozens more articles on CT imaging. And I thank you for being a subscriber.
![Axial images from unenhanced calcium score cardiac CT (left) and curved planar reformation images from CT angiography (right) show that higher long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with greater coronary artery calcium and more obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Top row: Images in a 68-year-old male patient with higher 10-year mean ambient air pollution exposure (7.9 μg/m3 for particulate matter measuring ≤2.5 μm in diameter [PM2.5] and 17.4 parts per billion [ppb] for NO2) with extensive CAD (coronary artery calcium score [CACS] >1,000 and obstructive CAD [≥70% diameter stenosis]). Bottom row: Images in a 57-year-old female patient with lower 10-year mean ambient air pollution exposure (6.3 μg/m3 for PM2.5 and 4.6 ppb for NO2) with no CAD (CACS = 0 and no obstructive stenosis).](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/06/hanneman.r6SMLzkezo.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
