Computed tomography – a revolution in radiology

Imaging is an important diagnostic adjunct to the clinical assessment of the dental patients. Since the discovery of x-ray, dental radiology has played a vital role in diagnosis of diseases. With the expanding array of imaging modalities, dental radiology has played revolutionary role in determining diagnosis, treatment plan and prognostic value. Present day intraoral and extraoral procedures, used individually or in combination, suffer from the same inherent limitations of all planar two-dimensional projections: magnification, distortions, superimpositions, and misrepresentation of structures. Numerous efforts have been made toward three dimensional (3D) radiographic imaging. During the last decades, an exciting new array of digital imaging modalities, has provided astounding new images that continually contribute to the accuracy of diagnostic tasks of the maxillofacial region. Among which computed tomography is one of them. This article reviews about the evolution, history, principles and advances of CT.