Is MRI with contrast darker than the one without contrast?

Question

Recently did a MRI with contrast and without contrast, I guess the image with the sign "C+" means contrast enhanced, but it looks darker than the one without C+, is it right? The one without C+ is much brighter and looks more layered.

Answer 1

No the contrast doesn't make the images darker; as matter of fact the contrast shows up bright on the images.  The darkness of the images is most likely because the fat saturation was turned on, which basically voids out the fat in the images making them appear darker.   There is many different types of images that the MRI acquires (T2, T1, STIR, FAME, FFE, Bffe) and these will all look differently and show different anatomy to the radiologist,  MRI contrast is basically only seen on the T1 images which most of the time are ran with fat sat to help the contrast become more visible on the images,  when I run a Brain MRI the protocol calls for a sagital and coronal T1 to be ran with out fat sat and the transverse to be ran with.    You didn't indicate which part of the body that the scan is off but when viewing the images look for bright areas in the images that say +C that will most likely be the contrast in the veins.  So yes the post contrast images do probably appear darker to you, but that is the way they should look.

Answer 2

Sounds like you have it figured out quite well.  The contrast better defines the anatomy, though the scans without contrast are useful also.  Perhaps a Radiologist or radiology technician will provide a more precise answer.  The key to reading them is knowing the anatomy.