[Diagnosis of lymphomas on the MR tomogram]

MR tomography provides images equal to, or superior to, CT of lymph node involvement in the thorax or abdomen. It may be possible to achieve tissue characterisation by means of T1 and T2 images. Chronic inflammatory diseases causing lymph node enlargement, such as sarcoidosis, show characteristic T1 intervals (about 650 msecs), whereas lymphomas show intervals of 900 msecs. Enlarged lymph nodes of low malignancy show lower T2 values (78 to 94 msecs), highly malignant show higher T2 values (83 to 145 msecs). Already we believe MR to be the method of choice in evaluating lymphoma and sarcoidosis.