Whole-Body MR Imaging—Evolution and Current Clinical Applications

When Dermadian and Lauturbur described clinical MR imaging, they believed that it would become the ultimate method to image the entire body. Limited by cost, time, availability, and technology, it evolved into a method to image regional body parts.

In the late 1990s in the USA, triggered by faster image acquisition, several authors including myself revisited the early dreams of Lauturbur and Dermadian, and described techniques allowing rapid whole-body imaging using MR imaging. These attempts followed two approaches: echo planar imaging in the axial plane led by Johnson and coworkers at Yale; and coronal turboSTIR imaging developed by myself and colleagues at Boston University.

As authors explored the technology, many new roles were described. These ultimately led to the development of whole-body screening MR imaging protocols by Lauenstein and coworkers in Germany in early 2000. As techniques have become refined and marketed by all major MR imaging vendors, solid useful applications of this technology have become part of routine clinical practice.

This issue of Seminars in Musculoskeletal Radiology addresses whole-body MR imaging, initially tracing the historical development of whole-body imaging in its many guises (article 1, Heffernan and Moran), and technical developments facilitating whole-body MR imaging (article 2, Meaney and Fagan) through to reviewing its many current clinical uses in musculoskeletal practice and body composition research (article 3, Moynagh et al; article 4, Shortt et al; article 5, Shelly et al; article 6, Colleran et al; article 7, Carty et al; and article 8, Foran et al).

The development of faster gradients, improved post-processing employing parallel imaging techniques, and targeted contrast media promise innumerable new applications for this technology in the years ahead.