Clinical nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of the body.

NMR promises great advances in diagnosis and has delivered so much already that it is expected that in the future it will replace many applications of the currently used imaging modalities. Although x-ray computed tomography is continuing to advance in speed of scanning and resolving power, NMR will most likely soon eliminate its use in many studies of the central nervous system and also in many other areas of the body. The promise of combining topical spectroscopy with imaging is also exciting and should provide further information about metabolic processes of various organs. Progress in NMR is so rapid and the future is so bright that one of the great problems will be to develop a new breed of radiologists who are versatile in biochemistry, mathematics, and computers, as well as competent in morphologic anatomy and pathologic physiology. As time goes on, advances in NMR will be achieved only by teams of clinical and basic scientists encompassing multiple disciplines.