PET/MR imaging for chest diseases review of initial studies on pulmonary nodules and lung cancers

Abstract

PET/MR imaging, a new hybrid modality, is thought to have great potential in oncologic imaging because it provides advantages of both PET, which allows functional imaging capability, and MR imaging, which allows high spatial resolution imaging without radiation exposure. Despite the inherent weakness of MR imaging in lung imaging, initial studies on lung cancer revealed that PET/MR imaging showed highly correlated standardized uptake values of lesions and equivalent performance in terms of lesion detection and staging compared with PET/computed tomography (CT). Thus, to affirm the actual clinical benefits of dedicated PET/MR imaging over PET/CT, prospective studies with more patients are warranted.