Diagnostic Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

While the effect of the revolution in diagnosis created by the X-ray computed tomography (CT) is still sweeping the medical world, another modality-- nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) -- has begun to command attention and is generating mounting excitement throughout the medical community. This is mainly because of the following three points: (1) NMR is an imaging modality that uses no ionizing radiation and therefore may be nonhazardous; (2) it reveals much higher intrinsic contrast between soft tissues than X-ray CT; and, (3) it has the potential to measure biochemical and metabolic parameters.