State of the art MRI in head and neck cancer

Head and neck cancer affects more than 11,000 new patients per year in the UK¹ and imaging has an important role in the diagnosis, treatment planning, and assessment, and post-treatment surveillance of these patients. The anatomical detail produced by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is ideally suited to staging and follow-up of primary tumours and cervical nodal metastases in the head and neck; however, anatomical images have limitations in cancer imaging and so increasingly functional-based MRI techniques, which provide molecular, metabolic, and physiological information, are being incorporated into MRI protocols. This article reviews the state of the art of these functional MRI techniques with emphasis on those that are most relevant to the current management of patients with head and neck cancer.