Renal Functional MRI: Are We Ready for Clinical Application?

OBJECTIVE. We review the basics of functional renal imaging and highlight a few clinical applications. CONCLUSION. Techniques such as contrast-enhanced MR renography, diffusion-weighted imaging, and blood oxygen level-dependent MRI have been investigated in animal models and in a few human studies. Functional renal imaging is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to provide new insight into the pathophysiology of renal disease.