This morning, September 30,  the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared what the FDA describes as the "first new major technological improvement for Computed Tomography (CT) imaging in nearly a decade."

The approved scanning system makes use of the emerging CT technology of photon-counting detectors. Photon counting systems for CT scanners can measure each individual X-ray that passes through a patient's body; current CT systems use detectors that measure the total energy contained in many X-rays at once. Through use of the photon counting technology, the FDA believes the CT system cleared for use today will offer images that will provide radiologists and other physicians considerably more detailed information about the patient.

No doubt much more will be learned about this new technology as it rolls out into the diagnostic imaging space.