Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for Early Diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis (CF)

In patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) the clinical course of lung disease is crucial for individual prognosis and life expectancy. Imaging modalities are important in the assessment of follow up of structural lung changes and monitoring of pulmonary complications in CF. Although high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the accepted gold standard for evaluation of morphological lung changes in CF, chest-X-ray is widely used as standard imaging procedure for assessment and follow up in these young patients due to less radiation exposure. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has not been used for lung imaging in CF so far. Studies from the 80's and early 90's were not able to show any impact for the use of MRI in CF. Due to recent technical developments MRI of the lung became possible. Our study group was able to show that MRI is a competitive imaging modality for evaluating changes of the CF-lung in comparison to the gold standard (HRCT). So far only patients from the age of 6-7 years were examined. According to recent studies CF is a disease which starts in utero. Therefore it can lead to extensive pulmonary changes even in infants and young children. In this age group lung function testing is difficult and not broadly available. An early optimized therapy is crucial for the long term course and outcome of the pulmonary disease. The aim of this study is to evaluate morphological and functional MRI for early diagnosis of lung changes in children (0-6 years) with CF.