Postoperative liver transplantation assessment by magnetic resonance cholangiography

Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) is becoming established as a highly sensitive, non-invasive modality for the evaluation of pancreatic and biliary tree pathology. With the advent of more sophisticated software and hardware technology, the technique is readily available and can be performed as a short duration, breath-hold procedure. The MRCP images are similar to the cholangiographic images obtained by endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography (PTC) or T-tube cholangiography, but are obtained non-invasively using heavily T2-weighted sequences that depict stationary fluid with a high signal intensity against a background of the solid organs depicted with a low signal intensity. A significant limitation of MRCP currently is its relatively poor resolution compared with other cholangiographic imaging techniques. Copyright (1999) Blackwell Science Pty Ltd