The purpose of this study was to clarify the usefulness of SPIO-enhanced MRI in the diagnosis of liver tumors in comparison with contrast-enhanced CT. The subjects were forty patients with 154 nodules in the liver. We compared SPIO-enhanced MRI with contrast-enhanced CT in terms of tumor-liver contrast and detectability of liver tumors. In terms of tumor liver contrast, SPIO-enhanced MRI was equal or superior to contrast-enhanced CT in 82% of cases. In the detectability of liver tumor, SPIO-enhanced MRI detected more tumors than contrast-enhanced CT, especially small tumors. Tumors undetected by SPIO-enhanced MRI that were detected by contrast-enhanced CT and/or plain MRI were adenomatous hyperplasia and inflammatory pseudotumor according to fine needle biopsy. There were no severe complications of SPIO-enhanced MRI. In conclusion, SPIO-enhanced MRI will be more useful than contrast-enhanced CT in the diagnosis of liver tumors. SPIO-enhanced MRI may be a promising diagnostic method for the detection of hepatic tumors, especially small ones.