A brief history of positron emission tomography

Shortly before the time of this writing, Michael Ter-Pogossian, PhD, passed away at the age of 71. He was considered by many to be the father of PET and is best known for experiments beginning in the 1950s, which led to the development of PET as a practical diagnostic tool (Fig. 1). In my research of the literature for this article, Dr. Ter-Pogossian's name appeared frequently on many of the landmark publications and I have drawn heavily from his work as a historian and scientist. His death is a great loss to the nuclear medicine community. It is with his achievements in mind, as well as the achievements of many other outstanding scientists, that I have written this article. I have tried to be as accurate as possible in my documentation of events as well as in my interpretation of their significance. I trust that the reader will gain as much as I have from this endeavor.