Diagnostic Imaging observes 25 years of imaging history

It was 25 years ago this month that Diagnostic Imaging published its first issue. It was a 24-page tabloid, and the advertisers' index listed 13 companies, most of which are no longer in business or no longer involved in medical imaging. Cover stories included a review of the controversy surrounding the 1979 Nobel Prize, which had been awarded to Allan Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfield for their work in developing the CT scanner.

A 25th anniversary of any sort is an event worth noting, and you'll find our observance on page 31. We've turned to four members of the Diagnostic Imaging Editorial Advisory Board who were in or approaching clinical practice in November 1979. We asked for their remembrances of times past and their observations about how things have changed in those intervening 25 years.

Their comments make for interesting reading. Imaging has brought dramatic improvements in clinical care and has placed radiology at the center of much of today's clinical decision making, as we see more clearly looking back. Magnetic resonance, then known as nuclear magnetic resonance, was still an emerging concept and far from a clinical reality. CT was new. Nuclear medicine was the main alternative to radiography. Interventional radiology was in practice, but the term itself had only recently been coined.

Our tagline in 1979 was "The News Journal of Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, and Ultrasound." Today it is "The Newsmagazine of Imaging Innovation & Economics." Our tagline may change again, but our essential role, chronicling the latest developments in imaging technology within the context of radiology practice, will remain the same.

John C. Hayes is editor of Diagnostic Imaging