Magnetic resonance with diffusion-weighted imaging improves assessment of focal liver lesions in patients with potentially resectable pancreatic cancer on CT.

• Addition of MRI provides better diagnostic performance in characterization of liver lesions. • Combined interpretation of MRI and MDCT provided less frequent indeterminate liver lesions. • Diagnostic yield of MRI was high in CT-indeterminate or suspicious metastatic lesions. • Operation candidates can be determined with greater confidence in potentially resectable PDACs.