Magnetic resonance imaging for lung cancer: a state-of-the-art review

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and imaging techniques such as chest radiography, computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) play an important role in its diagnosis, staging, treatment planning, post-operative surveillance, and treatment response evaluation. Pulmonary MRI can non-invasively visualize structural and functional abnormalities in the lungs without using ionizing radiation, although it has been suggested that it has less clinical utility than chest radiography, CT, and PET/CT for thoracic diseases, especially lung diseases. With recent advances related to MRI pulse sequences, pulmonary MRI has become practicable in an expanding number of clinical situations. This review article focuses on recent advances in MRI and discusses its clinical applications in the detection, diagnosis, staging, pre-operative evaluation, post-operative surveillance, and treatment response evaluation of lung cancer.