Spectral imaging in the pediatric chest: past, present and future.

Computed tomography technology continues to undergo evolution and improvement with each passing decade. From its inception in 1971, to the advent of commercially available dual-energy CT just over a decade ago, and now to the latest innovation, photon-counting detector CT, CT's utility for resolving and discriminating tissue types improves. In this review we discuss the impact of spectral imaging, including dual-energy CT and the recently available photon-counting detector CT, on the imaging of the pediatric chest. We describe the current capabilities and future directions of CT imaging, encompassing both the lungs and the surrounding tissues.