Evaluation of interstitial lung diseases using free-breathing 3D isotropic ZTE-MRI in comparison with High-resolution computed tomography

Pulmonary MRI provides qualitative structural and quantitative functional images of the lungs without ionizing radiation. In this study, free-breathing 3D isotropic high-resolution pulmonary zero echo time (ZTE) imaging was applied to detect pulmonary abnormalities and make diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). The pulmonary interstitial abnormalities including ground-glass opacity, reticular opacity, honeycombing, traction bronchiectasis and consolidation can be well depicted. The diagnosis performance of ZTE in ILDs is comparable with HRCT. ZTE might assist long-term follow-ups in ILDs evaluation without radiation exposure.