Clinical applications and techniques of echo-planar imaging

The ultrafast magnetic resonance imaging technique known as echo-planar imaging has undergone considerable technical improvements in recent years. It is currently being evaluated at only a few institutions worldwide. Although EPI, invented by P. Mansfield in 1977, is the oldest fast MRI technique, it is still not widely available on clinical scanners. Only 20–30 EPI scanners exist worldwide, compared to about 7000 conventional MRI scanners. The main reason why EPI has not emerged from the scientific prototype niche is its high demands on hardware and software. However, the time is now coming when EPI is entering the clinical stage. We describe the common EPI sequence types, show clinical results, and describe the contrast in the measured images.