Pancreatic head mass: what can be done? Diagnosis: magnetic resonance imaging.

Until recently, conventional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the pancreas was limited by motion artifacts (respiratory, vascular, and bowel peristaltic) and poor spatial resolution. Recent technique innovations in MR imaging hardware and software (fast imaging) have allowed these problems to be overcome with acquisition images similar to those obtained with spiral computed tomography (CT) (Figure 1).