In 20 patients with normal esophagi, spin-echo magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was performed to determine the appearance at different pulse sequences and T1 and T2 values. Twelve patients with esophageal carcinoma were also studied by both MR and computed tomography (CT); in ten, there was correlation with surgical and pathologic findings. Both MR and CT showed low accuracy in staging the tumors (40% and 70%, respectively), mainly because of difficulty in detecting tumor invasion through the muscle layer into periesophageal fat. Relatively T1-weighted images (repetition time, 0.5 second; echo time, 28 msec) were best for depiction of both normal esophageal anatomy and esophageal tumors. T1 and T2 measurements varied widely for both normal and abnormal esophagi and thus were not useful in predicting histologic findings.