Liver lesion detection and characterization: role of diffusion-weighted imaging.

Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) plays an emerging role for the assessment of focal and diffuse liver diseases. This growing interest is due to that fact that DWI is a noncontrast technique with inherent high contrast resolution, with promising results for detection and characterization of focal liver lesions. Recent advances in diffusion image quality have also added interest to this technique in the abdomen. The purpose of this review is to describe the current clinical roles of DWI for the detection and characterization of focal liver lesions, and to review pitfalls, limitations, and future directions of DWI for assessment of focal liver disease.