Comparison of fetal lung maturation in fetuses with intrauterine growth restriction with control group, using lung volume, lung/liver and lung/muscle signal intensity and apparent diffusion coefficient ratios on different magnetic resonance imaging sequences.

The T1-weighted sequence and DWI seem to be better than the T2-weighted sequence for assessing the faint difference of lung maturity between groups. However, SIR differences were not as meaningful as TLV differences and this could be related to the complex maturation process in IUGR fetuses as the effect of higher endogenous corticosteroids.