Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has several advantages in the evaluation of cancer
patients with thoracic lesions, including involvement of the chest wall, pleura,
lungs, mediastinum, esophagus and heart. It is a quite useful tool in the diagnosis,
staging, surgical planning, treatment response evaluation and follow-up of these
patients. In the present review, the authors contextualize the relevance of MRI in
the evaluation of thoracic lesions in cancer patients. Considering that MRI is a
widely available method with high contrast and spatial resolution and without the
risks associated with the use of ionizing radiation, its use combined with new
techniques such as cine-MRI and functional methods such as perfusion- and
diffusion-weighted imaging may be useful as an alternative tool with performance
comparable or complementary to conventional radiological methods such as radiography,
computed tomography and PET/CT imaging in the evaluation of patients with thoracic
neoplasias.