REVIEW article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Pulmonology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1568172
Non-contrast enhanced functional lung MRI in children: systematic review
Provisionally accepted
Carmen Streibel1*
Grzegorz Bauman2Oliver Bieri2
Orso Pusterla2
Enno Stranzinger1
Marion Curdy1
Philipp Latzin1
Elisabeth Kieninger1- 1Insel Gruppe AG, Freiburgstrasse, Switzerland
- 2Division of Radiological Physics, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, University Hospital of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
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Objectives:Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the lung is well suited for repeated measurements especially in children due to the absence of ionizing radiation. Furthermore, non-contrast-enhanced (NCE) functional MRI techniques provide localized functional information on ventilation and perfusion without specialized set-ups (e.g. hyperpolarized gases) using standard clinical MRI systems. Current NCE-MRI techniques in the pediatric setting are matrix-pencil decomposition (MP)-MRI, phase-resolved functional lung (PREFUL)-MRI, self-gated non-contrast-enhanced functional lung (SENCEFUL)-MRI and Fourier decomposition (FD)-MRI. In this article, we comprehensively discuss these innovative techniques. Study design:We review relevant functional NCE-MRI techniques based on a systematic literature research in MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov and ICTRP. Core concepts were: 1. Aspects regarding lungs 2. MP-, PREFUL-, SENCEFUL and FD-MRI, and 3. children. Consecutively, we included 30 reports.Results:Functional NCE-MRI in the pediatric setting has been successfully validated and used in observational studies covering a great variety of lung diseases. In contrast to initial implementation studies additionally reporting on clinical findings, later studies focus primarily on clinical topics. Heterogeneous study designs and examination protocols hamper the direct comparability between the different NCE-MRI techniques in terms of their performance against current functional imaging standards or specific objectives.Conclusion: Their easy applicability makes NCE-MRI techniques highly attractive for widespread clinical use. Following successful implementation studies, still varying test protocols and approaches for calculating outcome values must next be compared and standardized.
Keywords: Functional lung MRI, Children, Lung function, mp-MRI, pulmonology
Received: 28 Jan 2025; Accepted: 17 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Streibel, Bauman, Bieri, Pusterla, Stranzinger, Curdy, Latzin and Kieninger. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Carmen Streibel, Insel Gruppe AG, Freiburgstrasse, Switzerland
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.