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Open research questions in MRI in cancer diagnosis

87 gap statements mined from MRI in cancer diagnosis papers in our 4.5M-paper local library, which holds 661 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • Future studies dedicated to screening populations are also warranted to better assess the reliability of AB-MRI with more stable data.

    Utility of abbreviated breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging for the detection and characterization of breast lesions: comparison with full-protocol dynamic breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need for a comprehensive assessment of MRI features of invasive breast cancer in relation to LVI and its clinicopathological associations. Prior studies have found correlations between LVI and various clinicopathological factors, but more research is needed to fully understand these relationships.

    Can MRI predict lymphovascular invasion in breast cancer? A radiological-pathological observational insights · 2026 · DOI

  • Conventional BI-RADS assessments have limitations in distinguishing between HER2 expression subtypes. There is a need for improved diagnostic performance in differentiating HER2-zero, HER2-low, and HER2-positive breast cancer.

    Added value of intravoxel incoherent motion histogram analysis in differentiating HER2-zero, HER2-low, and HER2-positive breast cancer · 2026 · DOI

  • Conventional MRI has limitations due to overlapping imaging features. There is a need for a reliable, non-invasive imaging modality for differentiating benign and malignant brain tumors.

    Role Of Diffusion-Weighted Mri In Differentiating Benign And Malignant Brain Tumor · 2026 · DOI

  • Data from participants older than 90 years were excluded due to a lack of precise age. Data from participants showing suboptimal T1w, T2w or pCASL MRI quality, or inadequate image quality in regions corresponding to the DGMN were excluded.

    Quantitative MRI analysis of deep gray matter aging: Volumetric, T1/T2 ratio, and blood perfusion alterations · 2026 · DOI

  • Future studies can investigate the underlying mechanisms of age-related changes in the DGMN. Future studies can explore the relationship between age-related changes in the DGMN and cognitive decline. Future studies can develop novel biomarkers for neurobiological aging based on the study's findings.

    Quantitative MRI analysis of deep gray matter aging: Volumetric, T1/T2 ratio, and blood perfusion alterations · 2026 · DOI

  • Limited understanding of the role of quantitative MRI biomarkers in pediatric CKD. Need for rigorous validation and longitudinal studies to enable clinical translation.

    Quantitative MRI of pediatric chronic kidney disease and renal fibrosis: potential non-invasive clinical biomarkers · 2026 · DOI

  • The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning methods in pediatric CKD remains nascent. There is a paucity of studies applying these approaches to the assessment of histologic renal fibrosis, particularly in pediatric populations. Rigorous validation and longitudinal studies are needed to enable clinical translation.

    Quantitative MRI of pediatric chronic kidney disease and renal fibrosis: potential non-invasive clinical biomarkers · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a gap in literature regarding prone-to-supine biomechanical modelling of breast deformation. The scarcity of 3D breast MRI data hinders the training of a prone-to-supine biomechanical model. The proposed pipeline aims to address this gap by generating realistic and diverse 3D breast MRI samples.

    A Generative Pipeline for 3D Breast MRI: Diffusion Models Meet Super-Resolution GANs · 2026 · DOI

  • Deep learning has significantly advanced this area, with the development of generative models and transformers leading to improvements in fidelity and accuracy, although the study of the influence of attention mechanisms on these models remains limited to a single type or a single architectural placement.

    Comparative Analysis of Attention Mechanisms in Pix2Pix for Multimodal MRI Fusion · 2026 · DOI

  • Further studies should investigate the effectiveness of systematic additional education on SAR management. Research should focus on developing national guidelines and protocols for SAR management.

    SAR in magnetic resonance imaging · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application of SAR management among radiologic technologists. Current educational frameworks provide only a foundational understanding of SAR.

    SAR in magnetic resonance imaging · 2026 · DOI

  • To our knowledge, this is one of the limited studies focusing specifically on BI-RADS 3–4 architectural distortion in a real-world problem-solving MRI cohort.

    Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a Problem-Solving Tool in Patients with Mammographic Architectural Distortion · 2026 · DOI

  • The limited understanding of voxel-wise repeatability in [18F]FDG PET/MRI. The potential impacts of modality-specific variations in spatial resolution and image artifacts on repeatability results.

    Voxel-wise Repeatability of [18F]FDG PET/MRI Quantitative Metrics in Cervical Cancer · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of an integrated diagnostic strategy of ALN status to help axillary surgery de-escalation in breast cancer patients. The need for a more accurate and efficient method for assessing ALN status.

    An intelligent MRI-based all-in-one diagnostic strategy for axillary lymph node status in breast cancer · 2026 · DOI

  • The effect of GBCA administration on breast lesions' signal intensities on diffusion-weighted images is not well understood. The optimal b value pairs for calculating ADC mean values in the presence of GBCA administration are not established.

    Influence of gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA) on the diffusion weightings of breast lesions: an intra-patient analysis · 2026 · DOI

  • Prior studies were limited by small sample sizes or insufficient diagnostic performance. PDFF mapping is not yet widely adopted in clinical practice. The need for a more accurate and widely applicable method for predicting histological grade.

    Qualitative and quantitative assessment of intratumoral fat using chemical-shift MRI for predicting histological grade of hepatocellular carcinoma · 2026 · DOI

  • The current methods for characterizing parotid tumors are invasive and have limitations. There is a need for a noninvasive technique that can characterize the mechanical properties of parotid tumors. The study identifies a gap in the current understanding of parotid tumor microstructure and its relationship to tumor subtype.

    Multiparametric Ex Vivo Evaluation of Parotid Tumors: Feasibility and Preliminary Results · 2026 · DOI

  • Exploratory analyses identified possible platform-dependent differences in pelvic DR1 measurements; however, the diagnostic MR to MR-Linac transferability remains to be established in larger paired datasets. Although OE-MRI validation has been demonstrated in preclinical work, clinical validation remains to be established.

    Oxygen-enhanced MRI in patients with uterine cervical carcinoma: feasibility and treatment-associated changes in tumour oxygen-enhanced response · 2026 · DOI

  • MR elastography (MRE) has applications in breast cancer, but its optimal frequency and value in discriminating molecular subtypes remain unclear.

    Magnetic Resonance Elastography in Breast Cancer: A Prospective Study on Optimal Imaging Frequency Selection and Differentiation of Molecular Subtypes · 2026 · DOI

  • Approaches for microstructure MRI offer opportunities to enhance prostate cancer diagnostics, both by improving image fidelity and by delivering richer quantitative insight into tissue microstructure and function. Thanks to their promise and active development, the methods continue to mature, but in the current state, they are primarily research tools with limited support and testing in clinical environments.

    Microstructure imaging of prostate cancer by diffusion MRI · 2026 · DOI

  • To improve the consistency of the results by addressing the limitations of the current study. To apply the proposed pipeline to other medical imaging tasks. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed pipeline in a larger dataset.

    A Generative Pipeline for 3D Breast MRI: Diffusion Models Meet Super-Resolution GANs · 2026 · DOI

  • Multivariate integration using Partial Least Squares (PLS) regression and Factor Analysis of Mixed Data (FAMD) identified nodal status (N) as the strongest biophysical predictor, suggesting that lymphatic dissemination capacity leaves a measurable signature in the primary tumor density profile.

    Magnetic Levitation of Intact Tumor Biopsies Reveals Multivariate Biophysical Signatures of Breast Cancer Aggressiveness · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigating the potential for translation into a noninvasive preoperative assessment tool, - Expanding the study to include more patients and tumor subtypes, - Exploring the application of MRE and relaxometry/diffusion in other types…

    Multiparametric Ex Vivo Evaluation of Parotid Tumors: Feasibility and Preliminary Results · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigating the effectiveness of tumor-aware augmentation and anisotropic cropping strategies on other medical imaging tasks, - Exploring the use of other pretraining objectives and datasets for improving transfer learning in medical imaging, - Developing more robust and generalizable models for tumor…

    Tumor-aware augmentation with task-guided attention analysis improves rectal cancer segmentation from magnetic resonance images · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in MRI in cancer diagnosis

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) There is a need for a comprehensive assessment of MRI features of invasive breast cancer in relation to LVI and its clinicopathological associations (“Can MRI predict lymphovascular invasion in breast cancer? A…”, 2026); (2) There is a need for improved diagnostic performance in differentiating HER2-zero, HER2-low, and HER2-positive breast cancer (“Added value of intravoxel incoherent motion histogram analysis in…”, 2026); (3) There is a need for a reliable, non-invasive imaging modality for differentiating benign and malignant brain tumors (“Role Of Diffusion-Weighted Mri In Differentiating Benign And Malignant Brain…”, 2026); (4) Data from participants older than 90 years were excluded due to a lack of precise age (“Quantitative MRI analysis of deep gray matter aging: Volumetric, T1/T2 ratio,…”, 2026); (5) There is a paucity of studies applying these approaches to the assessment of histologic renal fibrosis, particularly in pediatric populations (“Quantitative MRI of pediatric chronic kidney disease and renal fibrosis:…”, 2026). 87 gap statements have been mined from MRI in cancer diagnosis papers in our 4.5M-paper local library, which holds 661 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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