IEEE Access Special Section Editorial: Emerging Computed Tomography Technologies

X-ray computed tomography (CT) has a central role in clinical imaging, often as the first and only imaging study before definitive intervention for a wide variety of conditions. X-ray micro-CT is similarly important in preclinical imaging with anatomically and physiologically relevant small animal models of human diseases. The field of X-ray CT is entering another Spring. Buds are blooming in the areas of X-ray sources such as those based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or free-electron lasers; detectors, especially photon-counting modules; X-ray gratings; contrast agents; compressive sensing (CS); and reconstruction methods. Synergistically, these innovations can be integrated to revolutionize the CT field, achieving a quantum leap in performance for biomedical applications.