A variety of tumors and cysts occur in the mandible and maxilla. The differential diagnosis of those is essential for treatment planning, and imaging plays important roles for this purpose. In recent years, CT has been widely used to image tumors and cysts of the jaw, and proved effective for not only evaluating their extent but also the differential diagnosis. On the other hand, MRI has not become an imaging modality routinely applied to those lesions. However, MRI can clearly show the contents of the lesion because of its excellent soft tissue resolution. Further, it has been reported that diffusion-weighted MRI is useful for differentiation of such lesions.
In my presentation, I will present representative MR images of several types of tumors and cysts occurred in the jaw and discuss MR imaging characteristics useful for the differential diagnosis.