Magnetic resonance imaging for trachea, bronchi, and lung

When magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was rst implemented, many investigators were interested in this new technique for not only brain but also other areas including chest. As a result, from the 1980s to the early 1990s, MRI was tested to evaluate different lung diseases as well as mediastinal, pleural, and cardiac diseases by many physicists and radiologists. However, because the MR systems, sequences, and other applications at that time were very primitive and limited, adequate image quality within an appropriate examination time could not be realized, so that it could not be demonstrated that MR could be substituted for computed tomography (CT), pulmonary angiography, and/or nuclear medicine studies. Until 2000, MRI was used only for some minor clinical indications.