WHAT IS MRI?

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive method used to render images of the inside of an object. It is primarily used in medical imaging to demonstrate pathological or other physiological alterations of living tissues.

Both CT and MRI scanners can generate multiple two-dimensional cross-sections (slices) of tissue and three-dimensional reconstructions. Unlike CT, which uses only X-ray attenuation to generate image contrast, MRI has a long list of properties that may be used to generate image contrast. By variation of scanning parameters, tissue contrast can be altered and enhanced in various ways to detect different features.

MRI can generate cross-sectional images in any plane (including oblique planes). CT is limited to acquiring images in the axial (or near axial) plane. However, the development of multi-detector CT scanners with near-isotropic resolution produces data that can be retrospectively reconstructed in any plane with minimal loss of image quality.