Our goal was to characterize pathological tissues of liver by magnetic resonance (MR)-related parameters such as T1 and magnetization transfer (MT) indices and to evaluate the clinical efficacy of MT contrast (C) in diagnosis of liver diseases via binomial pulsed saturation, with and without the administration of the paramagnetic agent gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA). Fifty-one cases of liver disorders were included in this study. Among the more important findings were the following: a) cirrhotic livers have significantly higher MT indices than normal liver, while hepatoma, metastatic tumor and fatty liver have sub-normal MT indices; b) in general, although with notable exceptions, images with MT give significantly better contrast indices than control images; and c) MT with Gd-DTPA rarely fares any better than the MT technique alone, although again with notable exceptions. MTC is a potentially powerful technique for diagnosing liver diseases, provided it can be optimally exploited for each individual disease type.