Smitha Rajaram1, Andy James Swift1,2,
David Capener1, Robin Condliffe3, Charlie Elliot3,
Judith Hurdman3, Christine Davies4, Catherine Hill4,
David G. Kiely3, Jim M. Wild1
1Academic Unit of
Radiology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, Yorkshire, United Kingdom; 2NIHR
Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, Sheffield, United Kingdom; 3Pulmonary
Vascular Disease Unit, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield; 4Department
of Radiology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield
Interstitial lung disease is characterised by inflammation and scarring of the pulmonary interstitium leading to increased signal from the diseased lung tissue. The purpose of our study was to compare 1.5 SSFP MRI of the lung parenchyma with high resolution computed tomography (HRCT), which is considered as the gold standard imaging modality in assessment of patients with interstitial lung disease. MR lung imaging has good specificity and sensitivity for diagnosing pulmonary fibrosis. However our results show that lung MRI has a poor sensitivity (78.5%) for identifying mild degree of pulmonary fibrosis but high sensitivity for severe disease.