Anatomy and medical imaging: a symbiotic relationship

Excerpt

In 1895, the anterior-posterior plain radiograph of the left hand of Anna Bertha, the wife of Professor Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, physicist in Würstburg (Germany) was the first step of medical imaging [8]. For almost one century, X-ray projection was the unique tool available for depicting the human body; what is now called medical imaging was then called radiography. Directly, X-rays allow only accurate imaging of the bones and the lungs. Direct soft tissue depicting by X-ray projection is very poor, but progressive use of varied contrast media brought an important contribution to the field. Through their injection into the blood or the lymphatic vessels, as well as into various organs or anatomical spaces, such as the joints, the digestive tract, the subarachnoidal space, etc., these contrast media have gradually enlarged the spectrum of exploration by X-rays. …