Objective To investigate the application of 3.0T MRI in the early diagnosis of carpal ligament injury in patients with carpal instability. Methods Totally 120 cases admitted into our hospital from January 2015 to January 2017 with diagnosis of carpal instability were included in this study as experimental group. Another 30 cases of healthy volunteers were included as control group. All subjects were treated with 3.0T high field magnetic resonance scanning. Results MRI signal intensity of wrist scapholunate ligament and april triangular ligament was significantly higher in experimental group compared tocompared with control group (P < 0.05). Comparison was made between the two groups for error in repeatability measurement, comparison of experimental group was significantly lower than the control group, which was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Two groups of carpal bone volume measurement results showed that there was no difference between them (P > 0.05). There was no difference for each position of scapholunate interval in dynamic MRI value (P > 0.05). Conclusion Coronal of wrist joint axial,sagittal, multi-directional scanning, which can observe the injury of ligament in wrist joint and make early diagnosis,can provide an important basis for the treatment of hand surgeons.