Basic principles of magnetic resonance imaging for beginner oral and maxillofacial radiologists

The basic principles and diagnostic methods of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for beginning surgeons are described in this review. MRI is an important technique that is essential for diagnoses in the maxillofacial area. It is a scanning method that obtains tomographic images of the human body using a magnetic field. In contrast to computed tomography, it does not utilize X-rays and, therefore, represents a noninvasive test that lacks radiation exposure. It is particularly effective for soft-tissue diagnoses. MRI involves imaging protons in vivo. Protons emit a signal when a radio frequency pulse is applied in a magnetic field; the MRI device then forms an image from these signals. The basic images produced are T1- and T2-weighted images; comparison of these images is the first step of MRI-based diagnosis. Short-T1 inversion recovery images, which eliminate the signal from fat, are also useful for diagnosis. Gadolinium is used as a contrast agent for MRI. Taking sequential images at fixed intervals while injecting the contrast agent and then graphing the contrast effect along the time axis produces a time–signal intensity curve, which is useful for identifying features such as malignant neoplasms based on the graph pattern.