Magnetic resonance imaging in children: common problems and possible solutions for lung and airways imaging.
Pediatric chest MRI is challenging. High-resolution scans of the lungs and airways are compromised by long imaging times, low lung proton density and motion. Low signal is a problem of normal lung. Lung abnormalities commonly cause increased signal intenstities. Among the most important factors for a successful MRI is patient cooperation, so the long acquisition times make patient preparation crucial. Children usually have problems with long breath-holds and with the concept of quiet breathing. Young children are even more challenging because of higher cardiac and respiratory rates giving motion blurring. For these reasons, CT has often been preferred over MRI for chest pediatric imaging. Despite its drawbacks, MRI also has advantages over CT, which justifies its further development and clinical use. The most important advantage is the absence of ionizing radiation, which allows frequent scanning for short- and long-term follow-up studies of chronic diseases. Moreover, MRI allows assessment of functional aspects of the chest, such as lung perfusion and ventilation, or airways and diaphragm mechanics. In this review, we describe the most common MRI acquisition techniques on the verge of clinical translation, their problems and the possible solutions to make chest MRI feasible in children.
Department of Radiology, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.|Department of Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergology, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Pierluigi
P
Ciet
Department of Radiology, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.|Department of Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergology, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Harm A W M
HA
Tiddens
Department of Radiology, Sophia Children's Hospital, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Piotr A
PA
Wielopolski
Academic Radiology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Jim M
JM
Wild
Departments of Radiology and Medicine, Pulmonary Divisions, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Edward Y
EY
Lee
Department of Radiology, Ca' Foncello Regional Hospital, Treviso, Italy.
Giovanni
G
Morana
Department of Radiology, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, University Medical Center, Wilhelmina Kinderziekenhuis (WKZ) Lundlaan 6, 3584 EA, Utrecht, The Netherlands. m.h.lequin@umcutrecht.nl.
Maarten H
MH
Lequin
D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D012140:Respiratory Tract Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Airways; Child; Computed tomography; Lung; Magnetic resonance imaging; Technique