Liver MR imaging at 3T: Challenges and opportunities

Increasing the main magnetic field strength for magnetic resonance (MR) imaging offers several theoretical advantages including higher signal to background noise, increased spectral separation, and better tissue contrast. The questions remain as to whether these theoretical advantages can be realized in the clinical setting and whether this implementation will lead to better lesion detection and characterization, more accurate diagnoses, and ultimately better patient outcome compared with 1.5T systems. While clinical 3T liver imaging is now more widely available, these questions still remain unanswered, as published scientific data are small. The answers will not only depend on the optimization of field strength-specific parameters but also on concomitant improvements in software and hardware.