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Chest CT
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Computed tomography, which many people call a CT scan, uses X-rays and a computer to build images of the body in sections, like slices. In the chest it is one of the best ways to look at soft tissues, meaning the ones that are not bone: the heart and the lungs.
What decides how each thing looks in the image is how much the tissue slows the X-rays down. That is called attenuation. The beam passes through: whatever slows it most looks light, and whatever lets it through looks dark. That is why the densest things, like bone, come out white, and the least dense come out black.
That ability to separate what is dense from what is not is what the test takes advantage of. It is used to define the size, the shape and the position of the chest organs, and to look for clots inside the lungs.
In brief
Computed tomography uses X-rays and a computer to create cross-sectional images, and it is among the best ways to see soft tissues such as the heart and lungs.
Each structure appears in a shade of gray based on how much it attenuates the beam: the densest looks white, the least dense black.
Whatever slows the beam most looks light; whatever lets it through looks dark.
It is used to define the size, shape and position of the chest organs, and to look for clots in the lungs.
Sources (2)
- National Center for Biotechnology Information, StatPearls PublishingComputed Tomography Instrumentation and Physics, StatPearlsPublished
- MedlinePlus, U.S. National Library of MedicineChest CT, MedlinePlus Medical EncyclopediaPublished
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
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