Basic knowledge for hepatic MRI interpretation

Nowadays, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has an important role for diagnosis of liver lesions due to excellent tissue characterization, radiation-free technique and continuous development of MRI technology, causing an increased use of MRI. This article focuses on basic knowledge of MRI liver interpretation for non-radiologist. The basic techniques including T1-weighted and T2-weighted sequences as well as additional techniques such as 2D dual GRE in-phase and opposed-phase, fat suppression or heavily T2-weighted sequences were introduced. Types of MR contrast agents for liver including extracellular and hepatocyte-specific agents were also described.