Progress of MR functional imaging in lung cancer

Lung cancer is the most common malignancy in China, and its morbidity and mortality have been increasing every year. MR functional imaging includes diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM), dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE), arterial spin labeling (ASL), and MR spectroscopy, etc. It not only can assess tumor morphologic characteristics, but also can quantify tumor various objective indexes. MR functional imaging has a certain significance to identify benign tumor and malignant tumors, different pathological types, different lung cancer staging, and so on. In this review, we focus on the MR functional imaging for lung cancer. (authors)