Abstract
MR imaging has become an important diagnostic tool in the evaluation of a vast number
of pathologies and is of foremost importance in the evaluation of spine, joints, and
soft tissue structures of the musculoskeletal system. MR imaging is susceptible to
various artifacts that may affect the image quality or even simulate pathologies.
Some of these artifacts have gained special importance with the use of higher field
strength magnets and with the increasing need for MR imaging in postoperative patients,
especially those with previous joint replacements or metallic implants. Artifacts
may arise from patient motion or could be due to periodic motion, such as vascular
and cardiac pulsation. Artifacts could also arise from various protocol errors including
saturation, wraparound, truncation, shading, partial volume averaging, and radiofrequency
interference artifacts. Susceptibility artifact occurs at interfaces with different
magnetic susceptibilities and is of special importance with increasing use of metallic
joint replacement prostheses. Magic angle phenomenon is a special type of artifact
that occurs in musculoskeletal MR imaging. It is essential to recognize these artifacts
and to correct them because they may produce pitfalls in image interpretation.
Keywords
chemical shift artifact - magnetic resonance imaging - motion artifact - protocol-error
artifacts - susceptibility artifact
