A method and system for detecting lymph nodes in multiple complementary magnetic resonance (MR) sequences is disclosed. Anatomical landmarks, such as blood vessels, are extracted in a first MR sequence, such as an MR angiography (MRA) image. A search area is defined in at least one second MR sequence, such as a T1 weighted VIBE image, based on the anatomical landmarks extracted the first MR sequence. Lymph nodes are then detected in the search area of the second MR sequence. The lymph nodes can be detected by segmenting the search area into homogenous regions and determining whether each region is a lymph node using feature analysis.