title: MR cholangiopancreatography.
abstract: Although MRCP is still an evolving technique, it has established itself as clinically useful and comparable with ERCP for the evaluation of various biliary or pancreatic ductal diseases. MRCP is not only comparable with ERCP in its diagnostic ability, but it has the tremendous advantage of being noninvasive. Furthermore, MR imaging is useful in patients with incomplete or failed ERCP, and in patients with certain biliary or gastrointestinal surgical procedures it is the imaging modality of choice. ERCP will remain an extremely important modality because of the great clinical importance for interventional biliary procedures with this technique. Nonetheless, MRCP may in the near future replace most of the diagnostic imaging of the biliary tree, with diagnostic results even more improved with further developments of hardware and technique.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina, 2006 Old Clinic Building, CB #7510, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7510, USA.
authors.forename: Tomofumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Motohara
authors.forename: Richard C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Semelka
authors.forename: Till R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Bader
mesh_terms: D001660:Biliary Tract Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003287:Contrast Media; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D010182:Pancreatic Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media