Current status of MR colonography

The search for an acceptable colorectal cancer screening examination has led to the development of virtual colonoscopy, which includes both computed tomographic (CT) colonography and magnetic resonance (MR) colonography. As indicated by the much larger number of published studies on CT colonography than on MR colonography, multidetector CT appears to be more suitable for colorectal screening than does MR colonography, in part reflecting the ease and speed of performing CT, as well as the increased spatial resolution, decreased cost, and wider availability of CT colonography. The main advantage of MR colonography over CT colonography is that it does not use ionizing radiation, which has important implications for colorectal cancer screening. The use of dark-lumen MR colonography to screen patients for colorectal cancer as well as other abdominopelvic disease could make it more attractive than CT. With the integration of 3.0-T MR colonography, fecal tagging, and parallel imaging into research and clinical settings, new MR colonography protocols must be optimized. Future MR colonography research should address issues such as image characteristics, presence of artifacts, management of specific absorption rate, and hardware-related modifications.