Ultra-high-field 7T MRI in Parkinson’s disease: ready for clinical use?—a narrative review

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The maturation of ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [≥7 Tesla (7T)] has improved our capability to depict and characterise brain structures efficiently, with better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spatial resolution. We evaluated whether these improvements benefit the clinical detection and management of Parkinson’s disease (PD). METHODS: We performed a literature search in March 2023 in PubMed (MEDLINE), EMBASE and Google Scholar for articles on “7T MRI” AND “Parkinson*”, written in English, published between inception and 1st March, 2023, which we synthesised in narrative form. KEY CONTENT AND FINDINGS: In deep-brain stimulation (DBS) surgical planning, early studies show that 7T MRI can distinguish anatomical substructures, and that this results in reduced adverse effects. In other areas, while there is strong evidence for improved accuracy and precision of 7T MRI-based measurements for PD, there is limited evidence for meaningful clinical translation. In particular, neuromelanin-iron complex quantification and visualisation in midbrain nuclei is enhanced, enabling depiction of nigrosomes 1–5, improved morphometry and vastly improved radiological assessments; however, studies on the related clinical outcomes, diagnosis, subtyping, differentiation of atypical parkinsonisms, and monitoring of treatment response using 7T MRI are lacking. Moreover, improvements in clinical utility must be great enough to justify the additional costs. CONCLUSIONS: Together, current evidence supports feasible future clinical implementation of 7T MRI for PD. Future impacts to clinical decision making for diagnosis, differentiation, and monitoring of progression or treatment response are likely; however, to achieve this, further longitudinal studies using 7T MRI are needed in prodromal, early-stage PD and parkinsonism cohorts focusing on clinical translational potential.