Thoracic MRI

Probably one of the last frontiers of clinical MRI, imaging of the lungs has long been considered a significant challenge with MR because of the predominance of air within the lungs and associated susceptibility issues as well as low intrinsic signal to noise of the inflated lung parenchyma. Nevertheless, new imaging technologies are opening the doors to lung MR imaging in exciting ways that may ultimately to prove to have tremendous research and clinical impact. Among these technologies are the use of hyperpolarized helium for use as an inert inhalational contrast agent for studying lung ventilation properties and the use of MRI to study lung perfusion, whether for diseases such as pulmonary embolism or to characterize lung and mediastinal tumors.