Magnetic Resonance Elastography for Clinicians and Researchers Unfamiliar With the Field

ABSTRACT

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is an emerging magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique capable of quantitatively evaluating the biomechanical properties of tissue. MRE has been widely used in the evaluation of chronic parenchymal liver diseases.However, numerous studies have suggested its applicability in evaluating other organs.The MRE data acquisition process consists of three main steps: 1) generation of mechanical waves in soft tissues; 2) adoption of a modified phase-contrast MRI sequence to capture tissue displacements produced by the propagation of applied waves; and 3) application of an inversion algorithm to transform the wave image into maps of viscoelastic properties. As efforts are made to standardize MRE terminology and protocols, more extensive clinical investigations using MRE are expected in the future.