Abstract

Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) is a frequently used imaging method for the characterization of pulmonary nodules, primary staging of thoracic tumors, assessment of treatment response and detection of residual/recurrent disease. PET/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as a new imaging modality, has some advantages for the evaluation of soft tissue tumors with its lower ionizing radiation dose and multiparametric evaluation opportunities. However, due to the technical limitations of MRI in lung parenchyma, its role in the evaluation of millimetric lung nodules and local staging of lung cancer is controversial. Nevertheless, previous studies show that PET/MRI generally has a similar diagnostic performance to PET/CT in the primary staging of lung cancer. PET/MRI also makes some contributions to local and distant metastatic staging and to determination of tumor resectability. The combination of PET and functional MRI parameters reflecting different biological characteristics of the tumor may provide new biomarkers for the earlier assessment of treatment response and the prediction of survival. Furthermore, newly developed MRI sequences increase the sensitivity of imaging modality in the detection of millimetric pulmonary nodules. PET/MRI has also high diagnostic accuracy in local staging of malignant pleural mesothelioma and thymic epithelial tumors. In this review, it is aimed to evaluate the diagnostic role and the contribution of PET/MRI in thoracic tumors.