CAT SCAN stands
for Computerized Axial Tomography. It's a way of using
a spinning xray and computer to make high resolution
images of the inside of your body. You lie flat on a table which
slides through this machine slowly and takes many circular pictures
which are put together by a computer algorithm into a final
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Any part of your body can be captured
and a technologist instructs the CAT scan where to begin and end taking
pictures. To enhance difficult to make out areas, some CAT scans are
done after injecting you with a special dye to clarify indistinct
areas.
The above picture shows a brain CAT scan of
a twenty year old with weakness on his right side. The red dots show
that he's weak because there's destroyed brain tissue on that side
- the black areas. The bones of the skull look like a white halo and
normal brain tissues looks speckled gray. Below is a picture of an
actual CT machine:
Risks from taking a CAT scan are no greater than for any xray, in
fact, it's been said that every time you fly in an airplane you are
exposed to about the same amount of radiation. A single CT exposure is equivalent to about 8 months of natural radiation from the environment.
