NOTE: First patient ever diagnosed by positron imaging, by Sweet and Brownell, in "Scanning the Brain" by Time Magazine on Monday, Apr. 5, 1954.
A HISTORY OF POSITRON IMAGING
Gordon L. Brownell
1
Physics Research Laboratory,
Massachusetts General Hospital
Division of Radiological Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
October 15, 1999
Keywords: history, tomography, positron imaging, PETAbstract:
The development of positron imaging covered many decades and
included contributions by many individuals. Indeed, the unique
challenges involved in the detection of annihilation radiation and the
subsequent processing of such data into an
image format suitable for detection of disease or study of
physiological processes has attracted the attention of many
outstanding physicists, chemists, biologists and physicians. A
thorough review of all of these developments would be beyond the scope
of this brief history. However, it is useful to describe some of the
early developments in this field dating back to the early 1950's.
Although it is true in many fields, it is still disconcerting to find
that important developments are placed in a time period that is years
or even decades after the initial work.
year
of services by the author to the Massachusetts General Hospital
on October 
, 1999.