Objective To retrospectively assess the importance and imaging appearance of the signal intensity， the signal noise ratio (SNR), the contrast noise ratio (CNR) and enhancement patterns of early arterial phase in diagnosis and differential diagnosis of small hepatic nodular lesions on MRI. Methods Conventional spin-echo T2W, 2D GRE T1W plain scan and Gd-enhanced 3D-VIBE multi-phasic (early arterial, late arterial and portal venous phase) acquisitions were performed for 68 consecutive patients with 102 lesions on MRI. Native T2W and 2D GRE T1W were acquired first, then 3D-VIBE fast scanning at early arterial, late arterial and portal venous phase respectively. The SNR, CNR, signal intensity and enhanced pattern of the nodular lesions appearances on plain scan and eariy arterial phase were carefully observed. Results There were hyperintense in 102 (100%) lesions in T2W and hypointense in 95 (93.1%) lesions in T1W in plain scan. There were differences among the SNR, CNR of hepatic cyst, cavernous hemangioma, neoplasm metastasis and small hepatocellular carcinoma in T2W (P＜0.05)，the highest SNR and CNR of lesions were hepatic cyst. The SNR of small hepatocellular carcinoma and the CNR of hepatic cyst were highest in all the type diseases in T1W, there was significantly difference as compared with the other type diseases (P＜0.05). The enhancement rate of small hepatic nodular lesions was 76.5% in early arterial phase. The enhancement rate of small hepatocellular carcinoma and hepatic metastasis were 100% and 87.9% respectively. The non-enhancement rate of hepatic cyst were 100%. The common enhancement patterns of early arterial phase were peripheral enhancement which were 36 lesions (35.3%). The even enhancement and uneven enhancement were 22 lesions (21.6%) and 20 lesions (19.6%) respectively. Conclusion Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of MR signal intensity combined with the enhancement patterns of early arterial phase will help for qualitation and differential diagnosis of small hepatic nodular lesions on MRI.