TECHNICAL ADVANCES ON ABDOMINAL MRI
NICKOLAS PAPANIKOLAOU

During the last decade, major technical advances that happened in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology, increased the abdominal clinical applications of MRI and posed this modality as an alternative imaging technique in abdominal diseases. Initially, MRI was introduced for focal liver diseases, in cases with equivocal diagnostic results from CT and as a main diagnostic tool for diffused liver diseases. The superb soft tissue contrast, lack of radiation exposure and three dimensional imaging capabilities of MRI are the major advantages over the other imaging techniques, while increased sensitivity to artifacts and cost are the major drawbacks. (...)