Abstract
CT of the spine should not be regarded as a primary screening examination like CT of the brain. Plain film studies of the spine are still necessary for this purpose. The place of CT in the diagnostic work-up of the patient with suspected abnormality of the spine is as a secondary procedure (a role similar to that of conventional geometric tomography) to better define, localize, and characterize the disease process. Computed tomography is now utilized in many instances in which complex motion tomography was formerly employed. Radiation doses to tissue from CT are significantly lower than from comparable examinations utilizing conventional tomography, and the information obtained from CT studies of the spine is typically much greater than can be derived from tomograms of the same region.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 185-206 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Radiologic Clinics of North America |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| State | Published - 1982 |
| Externally published | Yes |