Advanced MRI methods for diagnosis of focal liver lesion

Liver disease is very common in clinical practice. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is considered to be the most important imaging method to diagnose liver disease. Especially in recent years, with quick advances in technology advanced MRI methods such as diffusion weighted imaging, perfusion weighted imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and magnetic resonance elastography are not only applied to observe the morphological changes of liver lesions, but also used to reflect the pathological process and molecular changes of liver disease. In this review, we discussed the applications of these advanced MRI methods in evaluation of focal liver lesion. (authors)