Imaging tumour motion for radiotherapy planning using MRI

Novel technology has made dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of lung motion and lung tumour mobility during continuous respiration feasible. This might be beneficial for planning of radiotherapy of lung tumours, especially when using high precision techniques. This paper describes the recent developments to analyze and visualize pulmonary nodules during continuous respiration using MRI. Besides recent dynamic two-dimensional approaches to quantify motion of pulmonary nodules during respiration novel three-dimensional techniques are presented. Beyond good correlation to pulmonary function tests MRI also provides regional information about differences between tumour-bearing and non-tumour bearing lung and the restrictive effects of radiotherapy as well as the compensation by the contralateral lung.