Women's Imaging

MR imaging of the breasts, female pelvis, and more recently, of the fetus and placenta, all grouped under the heading Women’s Imaging, is a rapidly growing area of clinical and research interest. Breast MRI using dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging can be performed to detect and characterize breast lesions that are otherwise difficult to diagnose at mammography, particularly in younger women with dense breasts. The intrinsic high tissue contrast of the female genital organs on T2-weighted imaging lends itself well to diagnosing a wide spectrum of benign and malignant diseases. Moreover, with fast dynamic imaging, pelvic floor stability is easily assessed with MRI. High resolution 3D techniques, when applied to contrast-enhanced studies of the pelvis, are extremely useful for staging pelvic malignancies. With fast MR methods, definition of fetal anatomy is now possible and this development coincides the recent advances in fetal surgery.