Health & Medicine

For 50 years, CT scans have saved lives, revealed beauty and more

The technology gave doctors and scientists a new way to peer at the inner world beneath skin

CT scan image of a head and neck where some tissues and veins appear red

For the last five decades, science has unveiled the interior of the human body using CT scans, such as in this false-color, 3-D rendering of a head and neck.

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research

By Emily Conover

One grainy, gray-scale image of a brain changed science and medicine forever.

Half a century ago, the first CT image of a patient lifted the veil of invisibility that cloaks the interior of the human body, providing scientists a window on our innards unlike any before.